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THE    BATTLE   WITH    THE    SLUM 


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Ciipyrt^flA  /■'>"/,  fti'Cii-uroor/^.  /»'*' 


THE     BATTLE    WITH 
THE    SLUM 


BY 


JACOB   A.   RIIS 


AXJTHOR  OF  "  THE  MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN,"  "  HOW  THE 
OTHER  HALF  LIVES,"   ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


Neto  gork 
THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1902 

All  right*  reserved 


Copyright,   190a, 
By  the   MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  October,  1902.    Reprinted  December, 
1902. 


I.  fi.  Cuihing  »  Co.  —  Berwick  ft  Snrfth 
Norwood  Mm*.  U.S.A. 


TO 

THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

Ever  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  for  a  brighter  to-morrow, 
whose  whole  life  is  a  rousing  bugle-call  to  arms  for  the 
right,  for  good  citizenship,  and  an  inspiration  to  us  all, 

THIS   RECORD 

of  some  battles  in  which  we  fought  back  to  back  and 

counted  it  the  finest  fun  in  the  world 

IS  INSCRIBED 

with  the  loyal  friendship  of 

THE  AUTHOR 


1/    I  I    o  C 


PREFACE 

Three  years  ago  I  published  under  the  title  "  A 
Ten  Years'  War"  a  series  of  papers  intended  to 
account  for  the  battle  with  the  slum  since  I  wrote 
"  How  the  Other  Half  Lives."  A  good  many  things 
can  happen  in  three  years.  So  many  things  have 
happened  in  these  three,  the  fighting  has  been  so 
general  all  along  the  line  and  has  so  held  public 
attention,  that  this  seems  the  proper  time  to  pass  it 
all  in  review  once  more.  That  I  have  tried  to  do 
in  this  book,  retaining  all  that  still  applied  of  the 
old  volume  and  adding  as  much  more.  The  "stories  " 
were  printed  in  the  Century  Magazine.  They  are 
fact,  not  fiction.  If  the  latter,  they  would  have  no 
place  here. 

"  The  Battle  with  the  Slum "  is  properly  the 
sequel  to  'How  the  Other  Half  Lives,"  and  tells 
how  far  we  have  come  and  how.  "  With  his  usual 
hopefulness,"  I  read  in  the  annals  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science  of  my 
book  three  years  ago,  "  the  author  is  still  looking 


VI  PREFACE 

forward  to  better  things  in  the  future."  I  was  not 
deceived  then.  Not  in  the  thirty  years  before  did 
we  advance  as  in  these  three,  though  Tammany 
blocked  the  way  most  of  the  time.  It  is  great  to 
have  lived  in  a  day  that  sees  such  things  done. 

J.  A.  R. 

Richmond  Hill, 
August  27,  1902. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction.    What  the  Fight  is  about  .        .        .        .  i 

CHAPTER 

I.    Battling  against  Heavy  Odds        ....  9 

II.    The  Outworks  of  the  Slum  taken        ...  36 

III.  The  Devil's  Money 63 

IV.  The  Blight  of  the  Double-decker        ...        .76 
V.    "Druv  into  Decency" 113 

VI.    The  Mills  Houses 154 

VII.      PlETRO   AND   THE   JeW 1 75 

VIII.    On  whom  shall  we  shut  the  Door?      .        .        .  202 

IX.    The  Genesis  of  the  Gang 227 

X.    Jim 256 

XI.    Letting  in  the  Light 264 

XII.    The  Passing  of  Cat  Alley 310 

XIII.  Justice  to  the  Boy 341 

XIV.  The  Band  begins  to  play        .        .        .        .        .  385 
XV.    "Neighbor"  the  Password 396 

XVI.    Reform  by  Humane  Touch 413 

XVII.    The  Unnecessary  Story  of  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  and 

her  Parrot 441 

Index 451 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Theodore  Roosevelt Frontispiece 

PAGE 

One  of  the  Five  Points  Fifty  Years  Ago 12 

The  "  Old  Church  "  Tenement 15 

An  Old  Wooster  Street  Court 17 

A  Fourth  Ward  Colony  in  the  Bad  Old  Days       .         .        .         .18 

Dens  of  Death 21 

Gotham  Court 24 

Green  Dragon  Yard,  London 26 

A  Flagged  Hallway  in  the  "  Big  Flat " 28 

Jersey  Street  Rookeries 32 

The  Survival  of  the  Unfittest 33 

The  Rear  Tenement  grows  up 38 

Professor  Felix  Adler .        .        -39 

A  Cellar  Dive  in  the  Bend .41 

It  costs  a  Dollar  a  Month  to  sleep  in  these  Sheds  ...  46 
Mulberry  Street  Police  Station.     Waiting  for  the  Lodging  to  open      49 

Night  in  Gotham  Court 52 

A  Mulberry  Bend  Alley 55 

"  In  the  hallway  I  ran  across  two  children,  little  tots,  who  were 

inquiring  their  way  to  the 'Commissioner'"  .  ...  58 
"  With  his  whole  hungry  little  soul  in  his  eyes "  .  .  .  .  78 
One  Family's  Outlook  on  the  Air  Shaft.     The  Mother  said,  "  Our 

daughter  does  not  care  to  come  home  to  sleep  "  .  .  •  .  93 
The  only  Bath-tub  in  the  Block.     It  hangs  in  the  Air  Shaft  .     103 

The  Old  Style  of  Tenements,  with  Yards 106 

As  a  Solid  Block  of  Double-deckers,  lawful  until  now,  would 

appear 106 

Richard  Watson  Gilder      '. 117 

The  Mott  Street  Barracks    .         .         .         ....        .         .122 

R.  Fulton  Cutting .         .        .128 

Alfred  Corning  Clark  Buildings    .         .         .       ....         .        -131 

ix 


X  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACB 

The  Riverside  Tenements  in  Brooklyn 141 

A  Typical  East  Side  Block 146 

Robert  W.  de  Forest 147 

Plan  of  a  Typical  Floor  of  the  Competition  in  the  C,  O.  S.  Plans 

of  Model  Tenements 150 

Plans  of  Tenements .  151 

A  Seven-cent  Lodging  House  in  the  Bowery        .        .        .        -155 

They  had  a  Mind  to  see  how  it  looked 157 

Doorway  of  the  Mills  House,  No.  i 159 

Evening  in  One  of  the  Courts  in  the  Mills  House,  No.  i  .  .163 
Lodging  Room  in  the  Leonard  Street  Police  Station     .         .         .168 

Women's  Lodging  Room  in  Eldridge  Street  Police  Station  .         .  169 

A  "  Scrub  "  and  her  Bed  —  the  Plank 171 

What  a  Search  of  the  Lodgers  brought  forth        ....  173 

Bedroom  in  the  New  City  Lodging  Houses 177 

"  Are  we  not  young  enough  to  work  for  him  ?  "     ....  179 

The  Play  School.  Dressing  Dolls  for  a  Lesson  ....  189 
Label  of  Consumers'  League         .         .         .         .         .         .         -197 

Josephine  Shaw  Lowell 198 

One  Door  that  has  been  opened :    St.  John's  Park  in  Hudson 

Street,  once  a  Graveyard 203 

Dr.  Jane  Elizabeth  Robbins 205 

One  Way  of  bringing  the  Children  into  Camp :    Basket-weaving 

in  Vacation  School 210 

The  Children's  Christmas  Tree 219 

Jacob  Beresheim 229 

Heading  off  the  Gang.      Vacation  Playground  near  Old  Frog 

Hollow 237 

Craps 242 

Children's  Playground.     Good  Citizenship  at  the  Bottom  of  this 

Barrel 245 

The  Gang  fell  in  with  Joyous  Shouts 253 

"  Oh,  mother  !  you  were  gone  so  long  " 261 

Keep  off  the  Grass 266 

Colonel  George  E.  Waring,  Jr 269 

A  Tammany-swept  East  Side  Street  before  Colonel  Waring's  Day  272 

The  Same  Street  when  Colonel  Waring  wieWed  the  Broom          .  273 

The  Mulberry  Bend 277 

Bone  Alley 280 

Mulberry  Bend  Park 289 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  xi 

PAGE 

Roof  Playground  on  a  Public  School 291 

Kindergarten  on  the  Recreation  Pier  at  the  Foot  of  East  24th  Street  297 

The  East  River  Park 301 

The  Seward  Park 303 

The  Seward  Park  on  Opening  Day 305 

In  the  Roof  Garden  of  the  Hebrew  Educational  Alliance      •         .  306 

Bottle  Alley,  Why6  Gang's  Headquarters 308 

The  First  Christmas  Tree  in  Gotham  Court  .         .         .         .312 

The  Mouth  of  the  Alley 317 

The  Wrecking  of  Cat  Alley 327 

Trilby 331 

Old  Barney 334 

The  Old  and  the  New 343 

Public  School  No.  177,  Manhattan 347 

Letter  H  Plan  of  Public  School  No.  165 352 

Public  School  No.  153,  The  Bronx 356 

Girls'  Playground  on  the  Roof 360 

The  New  Idea:  a  Stairway  of  Public  School  No.  170            .         .  363 

Truck  Farming  on  the  Site  of  Stryker's  Lane       ....  367 

Doorway  of  Public  School  No.  165 370 

Main  Entrance  of  Public  School  No.  153 375 

Superintendent  C.  B.  J.  Snyder 381 

"The  fellows  and  papa  and  mamma  shall  be  invited  in  yet"          .  392 

The  "  Slide  "  that  was  the  Children's  only  Playground  once  .         .  394 

A  Cooking  Lesson  in  Vacation  School 401 

*•  Such  a  ballroom  ! " .         .  408 

Teaching  the  Girls  to  swim 411 

Athletic  Meets  in  Crotona  Park 415 

Flag  Drill  in  the  King's  Garden 435 

Mrs.  Ben  Wah 442 


THE   BATTLE  WITH    THE 
SLUM 

WHAT   THE    FIGHT    IS   ABOUT 

The  slum  is  as  old  as  civilization.  Civilization 
implies  a  race  to  get  ahead.  In  a  race  there  are 
usually  some  who  for  one  cause  or  another  cannot 
keep  up,  or  are  thrust  out  from  among  their  fellows. 
They  fall  behind,  and  when  they  have  been  left  far 
in  the  rear  they  lose  hope  and  ambition,  and  give 
up.  Thenceforward,  if  left  to  their  own  resources, 
they  are  the  victims,  not  the  masters,  of  their  en- 
vironment ;  and  it  is  a  bad  master.  They  drag  one 
another  always  farther  down.  The  bad  environment 
becomes  the  heredity  of  the  next  generation.  Then, 
given  the  crowd,  you  have  the  slum  ready-made. 

The  battle  with  the  slum  began  the  day  civiliza- 
tion recognized  in  it  her  enemy.  It  was  a  losing 
fight  until  conscience  joined  forces  with  fear  and 
self-interest  against  it.  When  common  sense  and 
the  golden  rule  obtain  among  men  as  a  rule  of 
practice,  it  will  be  over.  The  two  have  not  always 
been  classed   together,  but   here  they  are   plainly 


2  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

seen  to  belong  together.  Justice  to  the  individual 
is  accepted  in  theory  as  the  only  safe  groundwork 
of  the  commonwealth.  When  it  is  practised  in 
dealing  with  the  slum,  there  will  shortly  be  no  slum. 
We  need  not  wait  for  the  millennium,  to  get  rid  of 
it.  We  can  do  it  now.  All  that  is  required  is  that 
it  shall  not  be  left  to  itself.  That  is  justice  to  it 
and  to  us,  since  its  grievous  ailment  is  that  it  can- 
not help  itself.  When  a  man  is  drowning,  the 
thing  to  do  is  to  pull  him  out  of  the  water ;  after- 
ward there  will  be  time  for  talking  it  over.  We 
got  at  it  the  other  way  in  dealing  with  our  social 
problems.  The  wise  men  had  their  day,  and  they 
decided  to  let  bad  enough  alone ;  that  it  was  unsafe 
to  interfere  with  "causes  that  operate  sociologi- 
cally," as  one  survivor  of  these  unfittest  put  it  to 
me.  It  was  a  piece  of  scientific  humbug  that  cost 
the  age  which  listened  to  it  dear.  "  Causes  that 
operate  sociologically "  are  the  opportunity  of  the 
political  and  every  other  kind  of  scamp  who  trades 
upon  the  depravity  and  helplessness  of  the  slum, 
and  the  refuge  of  the  pessimist  who  is  useless  in  the 
fight  against  them.  We  have  not  done  yet  paying 
the  bills  he  ran  up  for  us.  Some  time  since  we 
turned  to,  to  pull  the  drowning  man  out,  and  it  was 
time.  A  little  while  longer,  and  we  should  hardly 
have  escaped  being  dragged  down  with  him. 

The  slum  complaint  had  been  chronic  in  all  ages, 


WHAT   THE  FIGHT  IS   ABOUT  3 

but  the  great  changes  which  the  nineteenth  century 
saw,  the  new  industry,  poHtical  freedom,  brought  on 
an  acute  attack  which  put  that  very  freedom  in  jeop- 
ardy. Too  many  of  us  had  supposed  that,  built 
as  our  commonwealth  was  on  universal  suffrage,  it 
would  be  proof  against  the  complaints  that  har- 
assed older  states ;  but  in  fact  it  turned  out  that 
there  was  extra  hazard  in  that.  Having  solemnly 
resolved  that  all  men  are  created  equal  and  have 
certain  inalienable  rights,  among  them  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  we  shut  our  eyes  and 
waited  for  the  formula  to  work.  It  was  as  if  a  man 
with  a  cold  should  take  the  doctor's  prescription  to 
bed  with  him,  expecting  it  to  cure  him.  The 
formula  was  all  right,  but  merely  repeating  it 
worked  no  cure.  When,  after  a  hundred  years,  we 
opened  our  eyes,  it  was  upon  sixty  cents  a  day  as 
the  living  wage  of  the  working-woman  in  our  cities ; 
upon  "  knee  pants  "  at  forty  cents  a  dozen  for  the 
making ;  upon  the  Potter's  Field  taking  tithe  of  our 
city  life,  ten  per  cent  each  year  for  the  trench,  truly 
the  Lost  Tenth  of  the  slum.  Our  country  had 
grown  great  and  rich ;  through  our  ports  was 
poured  food  for  the  millions  of  Europe.  But  in 
the  back  streets  multitudes  huddled  in  ignorance 
and  want.  The  foreign  oppressor  had  been  van- 
quished, the  fetters  stricken  from  the  black  man 
at  home ;  but  his  white  brother,  in  his  bitter  plight, 


4:  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

sent  up  a  cry  of  distress  that  had  in  it  a  distinct 
note  of  menace.  Political  freedom  we  had  won  ; 
but  the  problem  of  helpless  poverty,  grown  vast 
with  the  added  offscourings  of  the  Old  World, 
mocked  us,  unsolved.  Liberty  at  sixty  cents  a 
day  set  presently  its  stamp  upon  the  government 
of  our  cities,  and  it  became  the  scandal  and  the 
peril  of  our  political  system. 

So  the  battle  began.  Three  times  since  the  war 
that  absorbed  the  nation's  energies  and  attention 
had  the  slum  confronted  us  in  New  York  with  its 
challenge.  In  the  darkest  days  of  the  great  strug- 
gle it  was  the  treacherous  mob;^  later  on,  the 
threat  of  the  cholera,  which  found  swine  foraging 
in  the  streets  as  the  only  scavengers,  and  a  swarm- 
ing host,  but  little  above  the  hog  in  its  appetites 
and  in  the  quality  of  the  shelter  afforded  it,  peo- 
pling the  back  alleys.  Still  later,  the  mob,  caught 
looting  the  city's  treasury  with  its  idol,  the  thief 
Tweed,  at  its  head,  drunk  with  power  and  plun- 
der, had  insolently  defied  the  outraged  community 
to  do  its  worst.  There  were  meetings  and  pro- 
tests. The  rascals  were  turned  out  for  a  season; 
the  arch-chief  died  in  jail.  I  see  him  now,  going 
through  the  gloomy  portals  of  the  Tombs,  whither, 
as  a  newspaper  reporter,  I  had  gone  with  him,  his 
stubborn  head  held  high  as  ever.     I  asked  myself 

1  The  draft  riots  of  1863. 


WHAT   THE   FIGHT   IS  ABOUT  5 

more  than  once,  at  the  time  when  the  vile  prison 
was  torn  down,  whether  the  comic  clamor  to  have 
the  ugly  old  gates  preserved  and  set  up  in  Central 
Park  had  anything  to  do  with  the  memory  of  the 
"  martyred  "  thief,  or  whether  it  was  in  joyful  cele- 
bration of  the  fact  that  others  had  escaped.  His 
name  is  even  now  one  to  conjure  with  in  the  Sixth 
Ward.  He  never  "  squealed,"  and  he  was  "  so  good 
to  the  poor"  —  evidence  that  the  slum  is  not  laid 
by  the  heels  by  merely  destroying  Five  Points  and 
the  Mulberry  Bend.  There  are  other  fights  to  be 
fought  in  that  war,  other  victories  to  be  won,  and 
it  is  slow  work.  It  was  nearly  ten  years  after  the 
Great  Robbery  before  decency  got  a  good  upper  grip. 
That  was  when  the  civic  conscience  awoke  in  1879. 

And  after  all  that,  the  Lexow  disclosures  of  incon- 
ceivable rottenness  of  a  Tammany  police ;  the  woe 
unto  you !  of  Christian  priests  calling  vainly  upon 
the  chief  of  the  city  "  to  save  its  children  from  a 
living  hell,"  and  the  contemptuous  reply  on  the  wit- 
ness-stand of  the  head  of  the  party  of  organized 
robbery,  at  the  door  of  which  it  was  all  laid,  that  he 
was  "  in  politics,  working  for  his  own  pocket  all  the 
time,  same  as  you  and  everybody  else  !  " 

Slow  work,  yes !  but  be  it  ever  so  slow,  the  battle 
has  got  to  be  fought,  and  fought  out.  For  it  is  one 
thing  or  the  other :  either  we  wipe  out  the  slum,  or 
it  wipes  out  us.     Let  there   be  no  mistake   about 


6  THE   BATTLE   WITH  THE   SLUM 

this.  It  cannot  be  shirked.  Shirking  means  sur- 
render, and  surrender  means  the  end  of  govern- 
ment by  the  people. 

If  any  one  believes  this  to  be  needless  alarm,  let 
him  think  a  moment.  Government  by  the  people 
must  ever  rest  upon  the  people's  ability  to  govern 
themselves,  upon  their  intelligence  and  public  spirit. 
The  slum  stands  for  ignorance,  want,  unfitness, 
for  mob-rule  in  the  day  of  wrath.  This  at  one  end. 
At  the  other,  hard-heartedness,  indifference,  self- 
seeking,  greed.  It  is  human  nature.  We  are 
brothers  whether  we  own  it  or  not,  and  when  the 
brotherhood  is  denied  in  Mulberry  Street  we  shall 
look  vainly  for  the  virtue  of  good  citizenship  on 
Fifth  Avenue.  When  the  slum  flourishes  unchal- 
lenged in  the  cities,  their  wharves  may,  indeed,  be 
busy,  their  treasure-houses  filled,  —  wealth  and  want 
go  so  together,  —  but  patriotism  among  their  people 
is  dead. 

As  long  ago  as  the  very  beginning  of  our  republic, 
its  founders  saw  that  the  cities  were  danger-spots  in 
their  plan.  In  them  was  the  peril  of  democratic 
government.  At  that  time,  scarce  one  in  twenty- 
five  of  the  people  in  the  United  States  lived  in  a 
city.  Now  it  is  one  in  three.  And  to  tjie  selfish- 
ness of  the  trader  has  been  added  the  threat  of  the 
slum.  Ask  yourself  then  how  long  before  it  would 
make  an  end  of  us,  if  let  alone. 


WHAT  THE   FIGHT   IS  ABOUT  7 

Put  it  this  way  :  you  cannot  let  men  live  like  pigs 
when  you  need  their  votes  as  freemen ;  it  is  not 
safe.^  You  cannot  rob  a  child  of  its  childhood,  of 
its  home,  its  play,  its  freedom  from  toil  and  care, 
and  expect  to  appeal  to  the  grown-up  voter's  man- 
hood. The  children  are  our  to-morrow,  and  as  we 
mould  them  to-day  so  will  they  deal  with  us  then. 
Therefore  that  is  not  safe.  Unsafest  of  all  is  any 
thing  or  deed  that  strikes  at  the  home,  for  from  the 
people's  home  proceeds  citizen  virtue,  and  nowhere 
else  does  it  live.  The  slum  is  the  enemy  of  the 
home.  Because  of  it  the  chief  city  of  our  land  came 
long  ago  to  be  called  "  The  Homeless  City."  When 
this  people  comes  to  be  truly  called  a  nation  without 
homes  there  will  no  longer  be  any  nation. 

Hence,  I  say,  in  the  battle  with  the  slum  we  win  or 
we  perish.  There  is  no  middle  way.  We  shall  win, 
for  we  are  not  letting  things  be  the  way  our  fathers 
did.  But  it  will  be  a  running  fight,  and  it  is  not 
going  to  be  won  in  two  years,  or  in  ten, or  in  twenty. 
For  all  that,  we  must  keep  on  fighting,  content  if  in 
our  time  we  avert  the  punishment  that  waits  upon 
the  third  and  the  fourth  generation  of  those  who 
forget  the  brotherhood.     As  a  man  does  in  dealing 

^ "  The  experiment  has  been  long  tried  on  a  large  scale,  with  a  dread- 
ful success,  affording  the  demonstration  that  if,  from  early  infancy,  you 
allow  human  beings  to  live  like  brutes,  you  can  degrade  them  down  to 
their  level,  leaving  them  scarcely  more  intellect,  and  no  feelings  and  affec- 
tions proper  to  human  hearts." —  Report  on  the  Health  of  British  Towns. 


8  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

with  his  brother  so  it  is  the  way  of  God  that  his 
children  shall  reap,  that  through  toil  and  tears  we 
may  make  out  the  lesson  which  sums  up  all  the  com- 
mandmeats  and  alone  can  make  the  earth  fit  for  the 
kingdom  that  is  to  come. 


CHAPTER    I 

BATTLING    AGAINST    HEAVY    ODDS 

The  slum  I  speak  of  is  our  own.  We  made  it, 
but  let  us  be  glad  we  have  no  patent  on  the  manu- 
facture. It  is  not,  as  one  wrote  with  soul  quite  too 
patriotic  to  let  the  Old  World  into  competition  on 
any  terms,  "  the  offspring  of  the  American  factory 
system."  Not  that,  thank  goodness !  It  comes 
much  nearer  to  being  a  slice  of  original  sin  which 
makes  right  of  might  whenever  the  chance  offers. 
When  to-day  we  clamor  for  air  and  light  and 
water  as  man's  natural  rights  because  necessary  to 
his'  being,  we  are  merely  following  in  the  track 
Hippocrates  trod  twenty-five  centuries  ago.  How 
like  the  slums  of  Rome  were  to  those  of  New  York 
any  one  may  learn  from  Juvenal's  Satires  and  Gib- 
bon's description  of  Rome  under  Augustus.  "  I 
must  live  in  a  place  where  there  are  no  fires,  no 
nightly  alarms,"  cries  the  poet,  apostle  of  commuters. 
"  Already  is  Ucalegon  shouting  for  water,  already  is 
he  removing  his  chattels;  the  third  story  in  the 
house  you  live  in  is  already  in  a  blaze.  You  know 
nothing  about  it.      For  if  the  alarm  begin  from  the 


lO  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

bottom  of  the  stairs,  he  will  be  the  last  to  be  burned 
whom  a  single  tile  protects  from  the  rain  where  the 
tame  pigeons  lay  their  eggs."  (Clearly  they  had  no 
air-shafts  in  the  Roman  tenements!)  "  Codrus  had 
a  bed  too  small  for  his  Procula;  six  little  jugs,  the 
ornament  of  his  sideboard,  and  a  little  can,  besides, 
beneath  it.  .  .  .  What  a  height  it  is  from  the  lofty 
roofs  from  which  a  potsherd  tumbles  on  your  brains. 
How  often  cracked  and  chipped  earthenware  falls 
from  the  windows.  .  .  .  Pray  and  bear  about  with 
you  the  miserable  wish  that  they  may  be  contented 
with  throwing  down  only  what  the  broad  basins  have 
held.  ...  If  you  can  tear  yourself  away  from  the 
games  in  the  circus,  you  can  buy  a  capital  house 
at  Sora,  or  Fabrateria,  or  Frasino,  for  the  price  at 
which  you  are  now  hiring  your  dark  hole  for  one 
year.  There  you  will  have  your  little  garden  .  .  . 
live  there  enamoured  of  the  pitchfork.  ...  It  is 
something  to  be  able  in  any  spot  to  have  made 
oneself  proprietor  even  of  a  single  lizard.  .  .  . 
None  but  the  wealthy  can  sleep  in  Rome."  ^ 

One  reads  with  a  grim  smile  of  the  hold-ups  of  old : 
"  '  Where  do  you  come  from  ? '  he  (policeman  ?) 
thunders  out.  *  You  don't  answer  ?  Speak  or  be 
kicked  !  Say,  where  do  you  hang  out  ? '  It  is  all 
one  whether  you  speak  or  hold  your  tongue;  they 
beat   you  just   the  same,  and  then,   in   a  passion, 

*  Satire  HI,  Juvenal. 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY   ODDS  il 

force  you  to  give  bail  to  answer  for  the  assault.  .  .  . 
I  must  be  off.  Let  those  stay  .  .  .  for  whom  it  is 
an  easy  matter  to  get  contracts  for  building  temples, 
clearing  rivers,  constructing  harbors,  cleansing 
sewers,  etc."^  Not  even  in  the  boss  and  his  pull 
can  we  claim  exclusive  right. 

Rome  had  its  walls,  as  New  York  has  its  rivers, 
and  they  played  a  like  part  in  penning  up  the 
crowds.  Within  space  became  scarce  and  dear,  and 
when  there  was  no  longer  room  to  build  in  rows 
where  the  poor  lived,  they  put  the  houses  on  top 
of  one  another.  That  is  the  first  chapter  of  the 
story  of  the  tenement  everywhere.  Gibbon  quotes 
the  architect  Vitruvius,  who  lived  in  the  Augustan 
age,  as  complaining  of  "  the  common  though  incon- 
venient practice  of  raising  houses  to  a  considerable 
height  in  the  air.  But  the  loftiness  of  the  build- 
ings, which  often  consisted  of  hasty  work  and  in- 
sufficient material,  was  the  cause  of  frequent  and 
fatal  accidents,  and  it  was  repeatedly  enacted  by 
Augustus  as  well  as  by  Nero  that  the  height  of 
private  dwellings  should  not  exceed  the  measure 
of  seventy  feet  above  the  ground." 

"  Repeatedly  "  suggests  that  the  jerry-builder  was 
a  hard  nut  to  crack  then  as  now.  As  to  Nero's 
edict,  New  York  enacted  it  for  its  own  protection  in 
our  own  generation. 

1  Satire  III,  Juvenal. 


12 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


Step  now  across  eighteen  centuries  and  all  the 
chapters  of  the  dreary  story  to  the  middle  of  the 
century  we  have  just  left  behind,  and  look  upon  this 
picture  of  the  New  World's  metropolis  as  it  was 
drawn  in  public  reports  at  a  time  when  a  legislative 
committee  came  to  New  York  to  see  how  crime 


One  of  the  Five  Points  Fifty  Years  ago. 

and  drunkenness  came  to  be  the  natural  crop  of  a 
population  "  housed  in  crazy  old  buildings,  crowded, 
filthy  tenements  in  rear  yards,  dark,  damp  base- 
ments, leaking  garrets,  shops,  outhouses,  and  stables 
converted  into  dwellings,  though  scarcely  fit  to 
shelter  brutes,"  or  in  towering  tenements,  "often 
carried  up  to  a  great  height  without  regard  to  the 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY   ODDS  13 

Strength  of  the  foundation  walls."  What  matter? 
They  were  not  intended  to  last.  The  rent  was 
high  enough  to  make  up  for  the  risk  —  to  the 
property.  The  tenant  was  not  considered.  Noth- 
ing was  expected  of  him,  and  he  came  up  to  the 
expectation,  as  men  have  a  trick  of  doing.  "  Reck- 
less slovenliness,  discontent,  privation,  and  igno- 
rance were  left  to  work  out  their  inevitable  results, 
until  the  entire  premises  reached  the  level  of  tenant- 
house  dilapidation,  containing,  but  sheltering  hot, 
the  miserable  hordes  that  crowded  beneath  smoulder- 
ing, water-rotted  roofs,  or  burrowed  among  the  rats 
of  clammy  cellars."  ^ 

We  had  not  yet  taken  a  lesson  from  Nero.  That 
came  later.  But  otherwise  we  were  abreast.  No 
doubt  the  Roman  landlord,  like  his  New  York 
brother  of  a  later  day,  when  called  to  account, 
"  urged  the  filthy  habits  of  his  tenants  as  an  excuse 
for  the  condition  of  the  property."  It  has  been  the 
landlord's  plea  in  every  age.  "  They  utterly  forgot," 
observes  the  sanitarian  who  was  set  to  clean  up, 
"that  it  was  the  tolerance  of  those  habits  which  was 
the  real  evil,  and  that  for  this  they  themselves  were 
alone  responsible."^ 

Those  days  came  vividly  back  to  me  last  winter, 
when  in  a  Wisconsin  country  town  I  was  rehears- 

1  Report  of  Select  Committee  of  Assembly,  New  York,  1857. 

2  New  York  Health  Department  Report,  1866,  Appendix  A,  p.  6. 


14  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

ing  the  story  of  the  long  fight,  and  pointing  out 
its  meaning  to  us  all.  In  the  audience  sat  a  sturdy, 
white-haired,  old  farmer  who  followed  the  recital 
with  keen  interest,  losing  no  word.  When  he 
saw  this  picture  of  one  of  the  Five  Points,  he  spoke 
out  loud:  "Yes!  that  is  right.  I  was  there."  It 
turned  out  that  he  and  his  sister  had  borne  a  hand 
in  the  attack  upon  that  stronghold  of  the  slum  by 
the  forces  of  decency,  in  1849  and  1850,  which 
ended  in  the  wiping  out  of  the  city's  worst  dis- 
grace. It  was  the  first  pitched  battle  in  the  fight. 
Soon  after  he  had  come  west  and  taken  homestead 
land;  but  the  daily  repetition  during  a  lifetime  of 
the  message  to  men,  which  the  woods  and  the 
fields  and  God's  open  sky  have  in  keeping,  had 
not  dulled  his  ears  to  it,  and  after  fifty  years  his 
interest  in  his  brothers  in  the  great  city  was  as 
keen  as  ever,  his  sympathies  as  quick.  He  had 
driven  twenty  miles  across  the  frozen  prairie  to 
hear  my  story.  It  is  his  kind  who  win  such  battles, 
and  a  few  of  them  go  a  long  way. 

A  handful  of  Methodist  women  made  the  Five 
Points  decent.  To  understand  what  that  meant, 
look  at  the  "  dens  of  death  "  in  Baxter  Street,  which 
were  part  of  it,  "  houses,"  says  the  health  inspector,^ 
"  into  which  the  sunlight  never  enters  .  .  .  that  are 
dark,  damp,  and  dismal  throughout  all  the  days  of 
^  Report  of  Board  of  Health,  New  York,  1869,  p.  346. 


BATTLING   AGAINST   HEAVY   ODDS 


15 


The  "Old  Church"  Tenement. 


the  year,  and  for  which  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  the  money  paid  to  the  owners  as  rent  is  liter- 
ally the  'price  of  blood.'"  It  took  us  twenty-four 
years  after  that  to  register  the  conviction  in  the 


l6  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

form  of  law  that  that  was  good  cause  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  tenement  in  cold  blood ;  but  we  got  rid  of 
some  at  that  time  in  a  fit  of  anger.  The  mortality 
officially  registered  in  those  "dens  of  death "  was  1 7.5 
per  cent  of  their  population.  We  think  now  that 
the  death-rate  of  New  York  is  yet  too  high  at  19 
or  20  in  a  thousand  of  the  living. 

A  dozen  steps  away  in  Mulberry  Street,  called 
"  Death's  Thoroughfare  "  in  the  same  report,  were 
the  "  Old  Church  Tenements,"  part  of  the  Five 
Points  and  nearly  the  worst  part.  "  One  of  the 
largest  contributors  to  the  hospitals,"  this  repulsive 
pile  had  seen  the  day  when  men  and  women  sat 
under  its  roof  and  worshipped  God.  When  the 
congregation  grew  rich,  it  handed  over  its  house 
to  the  devil  and  moved  uptown.  That  is  not  put- 
ting it  too  strong.  Counting  in  the  front  tene- 
ments that  shut  out  what  little  air  and  sunshine 
might  otherwise  have  reached  the  wretched  tenants, 
it  had  a  population  of  360  according  to  the  record, 
and  a  mortality  of  75  per  thousand ! 

The  sketches  of  the  Fourth  Ward  and  Wooster 
Street  barracks  are  reproduced  from  an  old  report 
of  the  Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of 
the  Poor.  They  rightly  made  out,  those  early  mis- 
sionaries, that  the  improvement  must  begin  with 
the  people's  homes,  or  not  at  all,  and  allowed  no 
indifference  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  turn  them 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS 


17 


from  their  path.  It  is  worth  the  while  of  Chicago 
and  the  other  Western  cities  that  are  growing  with 
such  joyful  metropolitan  ambitions,  to  notice  that 
their  slums  look  to-day  very  much  as  New  York's 


An  Old  Wooster  Street  Court. 

did  then.  In  fifty  years  how 
will  it  be  ?  "  The  offspring  of  > 
municipal  neglect "  the  Assembly 
Committee  of  1857  called  our  "tenement-house" 
system.  "  Forgetfulness  of  the  poor  "  was  the  way  a 
citizens'  council  put  it.  It  comes  to  the  same  thing. 
Whether  seen  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  citizen, 
the  philanthropist,  or  the  Christian,  the  slum  is  the 
poorest  investment  a  city  can  make,  and  once  made 
it  is  not  easily  unmade.  In  a  Mississippi  river  town, 
when  pleading  for  the  turning  over  to  the  people's 
use  of  some  vacant  land  on  the  river-shore  that 
would  make  a  fine  breathing  space,  I  was  told  that 


i8 


THE  BATTLE  WITH  THE  SLUM 


by  and  by  they  would  consider  it.  Just  now  it 
was  too  valuable  for  factory  purposes.  When  the 
city  had  grown  opulent,  in  say  twenty-five  years, 
they  would  be  willing  to  hand  it  over.  Fatal  de- 
lusion !  Men  do  not  grow  that  kind  of  sense  as 
they  grow  rich.  The  land  will  be  always  "  too  valu* 
able."  When  we  in  New  York  were  scandalized  at 
last  into  making  a  park  of  the  Mulberry  Bend,  it 
cost  us  a  million  and  a  half,  and  it  had  made  the 


A  Fourth  Ward  Colony  in  the 
Bad  Old  Days. 


■*%'.'»^ 


slum  a  fixture,  not  to  be  dislodged.  No !  the  way 
to  fight  the  slum  is  to  head  it  off.  It  is  like  fight- 
ing a  fire.  Chasing  it  up  is  hard  and  doubtful 
work;  the  chances  are  that  you  will  not  overtake 
it  till  the  house  is  burned  down. 

There  were  those  who  thought  when  the  Civil 
War  was  over,  that  a  big  fire  would  not  be  the 


BATTLING   AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS  19 

worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  New  York ;  and, 
if  it  could  have  burned  sense  into  men's  minds  as 
it  burned  up  the  evidence  of  their  lack  of  it,  they 
would  have  been  right.  But  forty  per  cent  —  the 
rent  some  of  the  barracks  brought  —  is  a  powerful 
damper  on  sense  and  conscience,  even  with  the 
cholera  at  the  door.  However,  the  fear  of  it  gave 
us  the  Citizens'  Council  of  Hygiene,  and  New  York 
heard  the  truth  for  once. 

"  Not  only,"  it  ran,  "  does  filth,  overcrowding,  lack 
of  privacy  and  domesticity,  lack  of  ventilation  and 
lighting,  and  absence  of  supervision  and  of  sanitary 
regulation  still  characterize  the  greater  number  of 
the  tenements ;  but  they  are  built  to  a  greater 
height  in  stories ;  there  are  more  rear  houses  built 
back  to  back  with  other  buildings,  correspondingly 
situated  on  parallel  streets ;  the  courts  and  alleys 
are  more  greedily  encroached  upon  and  narrowed 
into  unventilated,  unlighted,  damp,  and  well-like 
holes  between  the  many-storied  front  and  rear  tene- 
ments ;  and  more  fever-breeding  wynds  and  culs-de- 
sac  are  created  as  the  demand  for  the  humble 
homes  of  the  laboring  poor  increases."  ^  The  Coun- 
cil, which  was  composed  of  sixteen  of  New  York's 
most  distinguished  physicians,  declared  that  by 
ordinary  sanitary  management  the  city's  death-rate 
should  be  reduced  thirty  per  cent.     Its  judgment 

^  Council  of  Hygiene's  Report,  1866. 


20  THE  BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

has  been  more  than  borne  out.  In  the  thirty-five 
years  that  have  passed  since,  it  has  in  fact  been 
reduced  over  fifty  per  cent. 

Men  and  women  were  found  Hving  in  cellars 
deep  down  under  the  ground.  One  or  two  of  those 
holes  are  left  still  in  Park  Street  near  the  Five 
Points  Mission,  but  they  have  not  been  used  as 
living-rooms  for  a  generation.  In  cellars  near  the 
river  the  tide  rose  and  fell,  compelling  the  tenants 
"to  keep  the  children  in  bed  till  ebb-tide."  The 
plumber  had  come  upon  the  field,  but  his  coming 
brought  no  relief.  His  was  not  a  case  of  con- 
science. "  Untrapped  soil  pipes  opened  into  every 
floor  and  poisoned  the  tenants." 

Where  the  "dens  of  death"  were  in  Baxter  Street, 
big  barracks  crowded  out  the  old  shanties.  More 
came  every  day.  I  remember  the  story  of  those 
shown  in  the  picture.  They  had  been  built  only 
a  little  while  when  complaint  came  to  the  Board  of 
Health  of  smells  in  the  houses.  A  sanitary  in- 
spector was  sent  to  find  the  cause.  He  followed 
the  smell  down  in  the  cellar  and,  digging  there, 
discovered  that  the  waste  pipe  was  a  blind.  It  had 
simply  been  run  three  feet  into  the  ground  and  was 
not  connected  with  the  sewer. 

The  houses  were  built  to  sell.  That  they  killed 
the  tenants  was  no  concern  of  builder's.  His  name, 
by  the  way,  was  Buddensiek.     A  dozen  years  after, 


BATTLING   AGAINST   HEAVY   ODDS 


21 


Dens  of  Death. 

when  it  happened  that  a  row  of  tenements  he  was 
building  fell  down  ahead  of  time,  before  they  were 
finished  and  sold,  and  killed  the  workmen,  he  was 
arrested  and  sent  to  Sing  Sing  for  ten  years,  for 
manslaughter. 

That  time  he  had  forgotten  to  put  lime  in  the 
mortar.  It  was  just  sand.  When  the  houses  fell 
in  the  sight  of  men,  the  law  was  at  last  able  to 
make  him  responsible.  It  failed  in  the  matter  of 
the  soil  pipe.  It  does  sometimes  to  this  very  day. 
Knocking  a  man  in  the  head  with  an  axe,  or  stick- 
ing a  knife  into  him,  goes  against  the  grain.  Slowly 
poisoning  a  hundred  so  that  the  pockets  of  one  be 
made  to  bulge  may  not  even  banish  a  man  from 


22  THE   BATTLE  WITH  THE   SLUM 

respectable  society.  We  are  a  queer  lot  in  some 
things.  However,  that  is  hardly  quite  fair  to 
society.  It  is  a  fact  that  that  part  of  it  which 
would  deserve  the  respect  of  its  fellow-citizens  has 
got  rid  of  its  tenement-house  property  in  recent 
years.     It  speculates  in  railway  shares  now. 

Twenty  cases  of  typhoid  fever  from  a  single 
house  in  one  year  was  the  record  that  had  gone 
unconsidered.  Bedrooms  in  tenements  were  dark 
closets,  utterly  without  ventilation.  There  couldn't 
be  any.  The  houses  were  built  like  huge  square 
boxes,  covering  nearJy  the  whole  of  the  lot.  Some 
light  came  in  at  the  ends,  but  the  middle  was  always 
black.  Forty  thousand  windows,  cut  by  order  of 
the  Health  Board  that  first  year,  gave  us  a  daylight 
view  of  the  slum:  "damp  and  rotten  and  dark, 
walls  and  banisters  sticky  with  constant  moisture." 
Think  of  living  babies  in  such  hell-holes ;  and  make 
a  note  of  it,  you  in  the  young  cities  who  can  still 
head  off  the  slum  where  we  have  to  wrestle  with  it 
for  our  sins.  Put  a  brand  upon  the  murderer  who 
would  smother  babies  in  dark  holes  and  bedrooms. 
He  is  nothing  else.  Forbid  the  putting  of  a  house 
five  stories  high,  or  six,  on  a  twenty-five  foot  lot, 
unless  at  least  thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  lot  be  re- 
served for  sunlight  and  air.  Forbid  it  absolutely,  if 
you  can.  It  is  the  devil's  job,  and  you  will  have  to 
pay  his  dues  in  the  end,  depend  on  it. 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS  23 

And  while  you  are  about  it  make  a  note  of  a  fact 
we  let  go  unheeded  too  long  to  our  harm,  and 
haven't  grasped  fully  yet.  The  legislative  com- 
mittee of  1857  said  it:  "to  prevent  drunkenness 
provide  every  man  with  a  clean  and  comfortable 
home."  Call  it  paternalism,  crankery,  any  other 
hard  name  you  can  think  of,  all  the  same  it 
goes  down  underneath  the  foundation  of  things.  I 
have  known  drunkards  to  wreck  homes  a  plenty  in 
my  time ;  but  I  have  known  homes,  too,  that  made 
drunkards  by  the  shortest  cut.  I  know  a  dozen 
now  —  yes,  ten  dozen  —  from  which,  if  I  had  to 
live  there,  I  should  certainly  escape  to  the  saloon 
with  its  brightness  and  cheer  as  often  and  as  long 
as  I  could  to  brood  there  perhaps  over  the  fate 
which  sowed  desolation  in  one  man's  path  that 
another  might  reap  wealth  and  luxury.  That  last 
might  not  be  my  way,  but  it  is  a  human  way,  and 
it  breeds  hatred  which  is  not  good  mortar  for  us  to 
build  with.  It  does  not  bind.  Let  us  remember 
that  and  just  be  sensible  about  things,  or  we  shall 
not  get  anywhere. 

By  which  I  do  not  mean  that  we  are  not  getting 
anywhere;  for  we  are.  Look  at  Gotham  Court, 
described  in  the  health  reports  of  the  sixties  as  a 
"  packing-box  tenement "  of  the'  hopeless  back-to- 
back  type,  which  meant  that  there  was  no  ventila- 
tion  and  could  be  none.     The  stenches  from  the 


24 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


"  horribly  foul  cellars  "  with  their  "  infernal  system 
of  sewerage  "  must  needs  poison  the  tenants  all  the 
way  up  to  the  fifth  story.     I  knew  the  court  well, 


Gotham  Court. 


knew  the  gang  that  made  its  headquarters  with  the 
rats  in  the  cellar,  terrorizing  the  helpless  tenants ; 
knew  the  well-worn  rut  of  the  dead-wagon  and  the 
ambulance  to  the  gate,  for  the  tenants  died  there 
like  flies  in  all  seasons,  and  a  tenth  of  its  population 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS  2$ 

was  always  in  the  hospital.  I  knew  the  story  of 
how  it  had  been  built  by  a  Quaker  with  good  in- 
tentions, but  without  good  sense,  for  the  purpose  of 
rescuing  people  from  the  awful  cellar-holes  they 
burrowed  in  around  there,  —  this  within  fifty-one 
years  of  the  death  of  George  Washington,  who 
lived  just  across  the  street  on  the  crest  of  Cherry 
Hill  when  he  was  President,  —  and  how  in  a  score 
of  years  from  the  time  it  was  built  it  had  come  to 
earn  the  official  description,  "a  nuisance  which, 
from  its  very  magnitude,  is  assumed  to  be  unremov- 
able and  irremediable."^  That  was  at  that  time. 
But  I  have  lived  to  see  it  taken  in  hand  three  times, 
once  by  the  landlord  under  compulsion  of  the  Board 
of  Health,  once  by  Christian  men  bent  upon  proving 
what  could  be  done  on  their  plan  with  the  worst 
tenement  house.  And  a  good  deal  was  accom- 
plished. The  mortality  was  brought  below  the 
general  death-rate  of  the  city,  and  the  condition  of 
the  living  was  made  by  comparison  tolerable.  Only 
the  best  was  bad  in  that  spot,  on  account  of  the 
good  Quaker's  poor  sense,  and  the  third  time  the 
court  was  taken  in  hand  it  was  by  the  authorities, 
who  destroyed  it,  as  they  should  have  done  a  genera- 
tion before.  Oh,  yes,  we  are  getting  there ;  but  that 
sort  of  thing  takes  time. 

Going  through  Whitechapel,  London,  about  the 

1  Health  Department  Report,  1870,  p.  iii. 


26  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

time  we  were  making  ready  to  deal  with  Gotham 
Court  as  it  deserved,  I  photographed  Green  Dragon 
yard  as  typical  of  what  I  saw  about  me.  Compare 
the  court  and  the  yard  and  see  the  difference  be- 


1  * 

1 

^^^^■^MflflSMHIflflB^^^H 

■i 

■■ 

Green  Dragon  Yard,   London. 

tween  our  slum  problem  and  that  of  Old  World 
cities.  Gotham  Court  contained  142  families  when 
I  made  a  canvass  of  it  in  the  old  days,  comprising 
over  700  persons,  not  counting  the  vagrants  who 
infested   the   cellars.       The   population    of    Green 


BATTLING   AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS  2/ 

Dragon  Yard  was  greater  than  the  sight  of  it 
would  lead  you  to  expect,  for  in  Whitechapel  one- 
room  flats  were  the  rule ;  but  with  its  utmost  crowd- 
ing it  came  nowhere  near  the  court.  Sullen 
discontent  was  the  badge  of  it.  Gotham  Court 
was  in  an  active  state  of  warfare  at  all  hours,  for 
its  population  w;as  evenly  divided  between  Irish 
and  Italians,  with  only  two  German  families,  who 
caught  it  from  both  sides.  But  there  was  hope  in 
that,  for  they  were  on  the  move ;  before  the  court 
was  torn  down,  one-third  of  its  tenants  were  Greeks. 
Their  slum  over  yonder  is  dead,  black,  given  over 
to  smoky  chimneys  and  bad  draughts,  with  red- 
eyed  and  hopeless  men  and  women  forever  blowing 
the  bellows  on  ineffectual  fires.  Ours  is  alive  if  it 
is  with  fighting.  There  is  yeast  in  it,  and  bright 
skies  without,  if  not  within.  I  don't  believe  there 
is  a  bellows  to  be  had  in  New  York.  Our  slum, 
with  its  greater  crowd,  has  more  urgent  need  of 
sharp  attention,  chiefly  because  of  the  overflow  of 
theirs  which  it  receives.  But  after  all,  even  that  repre- 
sents what  still  had  courage  and  manhood  enough  to 
make  it  want  to  get  away  and  do  better.  We  shall 
"  get  there "  if  we  don't  give  up.  It  sometimes 
seems  to  me  that  their  only  hope  is  to  get  here. 

Speaking  of  the  fair  beginning  of  Gotham  Court 
reminds  me  of  the  Big  Flat  in  Mott  Street,  a 
mighty  tenement  with  room  for  a  hundred  families 


28 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


that  was  another  instance  of  reform  still-born;  by 
which  I  mean  that  it  came  before  we  were  ready  for 
it,  and  willing  to  back  it  up ;  also  before  we  knew 
just  how.  That  house  was  built  by  the  philanthro- 
pists of  those  days  on  such  a  generous  scale  that  it 
reached  clear  through  the  block  to  Elizabeth  Street. 
It  had  not  occurred  to  the  builders  that  the  neigh- 


Flagged  Hallway  in  the  "  Big  Flat." 

borhood  was  one  in  which  such  an  arrangement  might 
prove  of  special  convenience  to  the  lawbreakers 
with  which  it  swarmed.  Thieves  and  thugs  made 
it  a  runway,  and  decent  people  shunned  it.  Other 
philanthropists,  with  the  will  but  without  the  wisdom 
that  was  needed,  took  it  up  and  tried  to  make  a 
workingwoman's  home  of  it;  but  that  end  was 
worse  than  the  beginning.     The  women  would  have 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS  29 

none  of  the  rules  that  went  with  the  philanthropy, 
and  the  Big  Flat  lapsed  back  among  the  slum  tene- 
ments and  became  the  worst  of  a  bad  lot.  I  speak 
of  it  here  because  just  now  the  recollection  of  it  is 
a  kind  of  a  milestone  in  the  battle  with  the  slum. 
Twenty  years  after,  A.  T.  Stewart,  the  merchant 
prince,  set  another  in  the  Park  Avenue  Hotel  which 
he  intended  for  his  working-girls;  and  that  was  a 
worse  failure  than  the  first,  for  it  never  served  the 
purpose  he  intended  for  it.  And  now,  just  as  I  am 
writing  this,  they  are  putting  the  finishing  touches  to 
a  real  woman's  hotel  up-town  which  will  not  be  a  fail- 
ure, though  it  will  hardly  reach  the  same  class  which 
the  remodellers  of  the  Big  Flat  had  in  mind.  How- 
ever, we  shall  get  there,  too,  now  we  know  the  way. 
Slowly,  with  many  setbacks,  we  battled  our  way 
into  the  light.  A  Board  of  Health  had  come  with 
the  cholera  panic  in  1866.  The  swine  that  ran  at 
large  in  the  streets,  practically  the  only  scavengers, 
were  banished.  The  cholera  and  the  yellow  fever 
that  had  ravaged  the  city  by  turns  never  came  back. 
The  smallpox  went    its  way,  too,^   and  was  heard 

1  They  had  "  health  wardens  "  in  the  old  days,  and  the  Council  of  Hy- 
giene tells  of  the  efficient  way  two  of  them  fought  the  smallpox.  One  stood 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and  yelled  to  those  minding  a  patient  in  the  next 
story  to  "  put  pieces  of  camphor  about  the  clothes  of  the  sick  and  occasion- 
ally throw  a  piece  on  the  hot  stove."  The  other  summoned  the  occu- 
pants of  a  smallpox  smitten  tenement  to  the  hall  door  and  cautioned  them 
to  say  nothing  about  it  to  any  one,  or  he  would  send  them  all  to  the  pest- 
house! 


30  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

of  again  only  once  as  an  epidemic,  till  people  had 
forgotten  what  it  was  like,  —  enough  to  make  them 
listen  to  the  anti-vaccination  cranks,  —  and  politics 
had  the  health  department  by  the  throat  again 
and  held  the  gate  open.  We  acquired  tenement 
house  laws,  and  the  process  of  education  that  had 
begun  with  the  foraging  ground  of  the  swine  was 
extended  step  by  step  to  the  citizen's  home.  Short 
steps  and  cautious  were  they.  Every  obstacle  which 
the  landlord's  cunning  and  the  perversion  of  the 
machinery  of  the  law  to  serve  his  interests  could 
devise  was  thrown  in  the  way.  It  was  a  new  doc- 
trine to  that  day  that  any  power  should  intervene 
between  him  and  the  tenants  who  represented  his 
income,  and  it  was  held  to  be  a  hardship  if  not 
downright  robbery.  The  builder  took  the  same 
view.  Every  tenement  house  plan  was  the  subject 
of  hot  debate  between  the  Health  Board  and  the 
builder,  or  his  architect.  The  smallest  air-shaft  had 
to  be  wrung  out  of  him,  as  it  were,  by  main  strength. 
The  church  itself  was  too  often  on  the  side  of  the 
enemy,  where  its  material  interests  were  involved. 
Trinity,  the  wealthiest  church  corporation  in  the 
land,  was  in  constant  opposition  as  a  tenement 
house  landlord,  and  finally,  to  save  a  few  hundred 
dollars,  came  near  upsetting  the  whole  structure  of 
tenement  law  that  had  -been  built  up  in  the  interest 
of  the  toilers  and  of  the  city's  safety  with  such  infi- 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY   ODDS  31 

nite  pains.  The  courts  were  reluctant.  Courts  in 
such  matters  record  rather  than  lead  the  state  of  the 
public  mind,  and  now  that  the  Immediate  danger  of 
an  epidemic  was  over,  the  public  mind  had  a  hard 
time  grasping  the  fact  that  bettering  the  housing  of 
the  poor  was  simple  protection  for  the  community. 
When  suit  was  brought  against  a  bad  landlord, 
judges  demanded  that  the  department  must  prove 
not  only  that  a  certain  state  of  soil  saturation,  for 
instance,  was  dangerous  to  health,  but  that  some  one 
had  been  actually  made  sick  by  that  specified  nui- 
sance. Fat-boilers,  slaughter-house  men,  and  keepers 
of  other  nuisances  made  common  cause  against  the 
new  decency,  and  with  these  obstacles  in  front,  the 
Sanitarians  found  the  enemy  constantly  recruited 
from  the  rear.  With  the  immense  immigration 
that  poured  in  after  the  Civil  War,  the  evil  with 
which  they  were  struggling  grew  enormously. 
Economic  problems  other  than  the  old  one  of  rent 
came  to  vex  us.  The  sweater  moved  into  the  East 
Side  tenements.     Child-labor  grew  and  swelled. 

The  tenement  had  grown  its  logical  crop.  In  the 
sweating  conspiracy  it  is  a  prime  factor.  Its  extor- 
tionate rates  make  the  need,  and  the  need  of  the 
poor  was  ever  the  opportunity  of  their  oppressor. 
What  they  have  to  take  becomes  the  standard  of 
all  the  rest.  Sweating  is  only  a  modern  name  for  it. 
The  cause  is  as  old  as  the  slum  itself. 


32 


THE   BATTLE   WITH  THE   SLUM 


However,  the  new  light  was  not  without  its  allies. 
Chief  among  them  was  the  onward  march  of  business 
that  wiped  out  many  a  foul  spot  which  had  sorely 
tried  the  patience  of  us  all.  A  carriage  factory  took 
the  place  of  the  Big  Flat  when  it  had  become  a 
disgusting  scandal.     Jersey   Street,   a   short   block 


Jersey  Street  Rookeries. 

between  Mulberry  and  Crosby  streets,  to  which  no 
Whitechapel  slum  could  hold  a  candle,  became  a 
factoiy  street.  No  one  lives  there  now.  The  last 
who  did  was  murdered  by  the  gang  that  grew  as 
naturally  out  of  its  wickedness  as  a  toadstool  grows 
on  a  rotten  log.  He  kept  the  saloon  on  the  corner 
of  Crosby  Street.  Saloon  and  tenements  are  gone 
together.     Where  they  were  are  rows  of  factories. 


BATTLING  AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS 


33 


The  Survival  of  the  Unfittest. 


empty  and  silent  at  night.  A  man  may  go  safely 
there  now  at  any  hour.  I  should  not  have  advised 
strangers  to  try  that  when  it  was  at  its  worst,  though 
Police  Headquarters  was  but  a  block  away. 

I  photographed  that  phase  of  the  battle  with  the 
slum  just  before  they  shut  in  the  last  tenement  in 
the  block  with  a  factory  building  in  its  rear.  It 
stood  for  a  while  after  that  down  in  a  deep  sort  of 
pocket  with  not  enough  light  struggling  down  on 
the  brightest  of  days  to  make  out  anything  clearly 
in  the  rooms,  —  truly  a  survival  of  the  unfittest; 
but  the  tenants  stayed.     They  had  access  through 


34  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

a  hallway  on  Crosby  Street ;  they  had  never  been 
used  to  a  yard ;  as  for  the  darkness,  that  they  had 
always  been  used  to.  They  were  "  manured  to  the 
soil,"  in  the  words  of  Mrs.  Partington.  But  at 
length  business  claimed  the  last  foot  of  the  block, 
and  peace  came  to  it  and  to  us. 

All  the  while  we  were  learning.  It  was  emphat- 
ically a  campaign  of  education.  When  the  cholera 
threatened  there  was  the  old  disposition  to  lie  down 
under  the  visitation  and  pray.  The  council  pointed 
to  the  fifteen  hundred  cases  of  smallpox  ferreted 
Q\tt  by  its  inspectors  "  in  a  few  days,"  and  sternly 
reminded  the  people  of  Lord  Palmerston's  advice  to 
those  who  would  stay  an  epidemic  with  a  national 
fast,  that  they  had  better  turn  to  and  clean  up. 
We  pray  nowadays  with  broom  in  hand,  and  the 
prayer  tells.  Do  not  understand  me  as  discourag- 
ing the  prayer ;  far  from  it.  But  I  would  lend  an 
edge  to  it  with  the  broom  that  cuts.  That  kind  of 
foolishness  we  got  rid  of ;  the  other  kind  that  thinks 
the  individual's  interest  superior  to  the  public  good 
—  that  is  the  thing  we  have  got  to  fight  till  we  die. 
But  we  made  notches  in  that  on  which  to  hang 
arguments  that  stick.  Human  life  then  counted 
for  less  than  the  landlord's  profits;  to-day  it  is 
weighed  in  the  scale  against  them.  Property  still 
has  powerful  pull.  "  Vested  rights  "  rise  up  and 
confront  you,  and  no  matter  how  loudly  yoij  may 


BATTLING   AGAINST   HEAVY  ODDS  35 

protest  that  no  man  has  the  right  to  kill  his  neigh- 
bor, they  are  still  there.  No  one  will  contradict 
you,  but  they  won't  yield  —  till  you  make  them. 
In  a  hundred  ways  you  are  made  to  feel  that  vested 
rights  are  sacred,  if  human  life  is  not.  But  the 
glory  is  that  you  can  make  them  yield.  You 
couldn't  then. 

We  haven't  reached  the  millennium  yet.  But  let 
us  be  glad.  A  hundred  years  ago  they  hanged  a 
woman  on  Tyburn  Hill  for  stealing  a  loaf  of  bread. 
To-day  we  destroy  the  den  that  helped  make  her  a 
thief. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    OUTWORKS    OF    THE    SLUM   TAKEN 

I  SAID  that  we  got  our  grip  when  the  civic  con- 
science awoke  in  1879.  In  that  year  the  slum  was 
arraigned  in  the  churches.  The  sad  and  shameful 
story  was  told  of  how  it  grew  and  was  fostered  by 
avarice  that  saw  in  the  homeless  crowds  from  over 
the  sea  only  a  chance  for  business,  and  exploited 
them  to  the  uttermost;  how  Christianity,  citizen- 
ship, human  fellowship,  shook  their  skirts  clear  of 
the  rabble  that  was  only  good  enough  to  fill  the 
greedy  purse,  and  how  the  rabble,  left  to  itself,  im- 
proved such  opportunities  as  it  found  after  such 
fashion  as  it  knew ;  how  it  ran  elections  merely  to 
count  its  thugs  in,  and  fattened  at  the  public  crib; 
and  how  the  whole  evil  thing  had  its  root  in  the 
tenements,  where  the  home  had  ceased  to  be  sacred, 
—  those  dark  and  deadly  dens  in  which  the  family 
ideal  was  tortured  to  death,  and  character  was 
smothered ;  in  which  children  were  "  damned  rather 
than  born "  into  the  world,  thus  realizinjr  a  slum 
kind  of  foreordination  to  torment,  happily  brief  in 
many  cases.     The  Tenement   House   Commission 

36 


THE  OUTWORKS  OF  THE  SLUM  TAKEN     37 

long  afterward  called  the  worst  of  the  barracks 
"  infant  slaughter  houses,"  and  showed,  by  reference 
to  the  mortality  lists,  that  they  killed  one  in  every 
five  babies  born  in  them. 

The  story  shocked  the  town  into  action.  Plans 
for  a  better  kind  of  tenement  were  called  for,  and 
a  premium  was  put  on  every  ray  of  light  and 
breath  of  air  that  could  be  let  into  it.  It  was  not 
much,  for  the  plans  clung  to  the  twenty-five-foot  lot 
which  was  the  primal  curse,  and  the  type  of  tene- 
ment evolved,  the  double-decker  of  the  "  dumb-bell  " 
shape,  while  it  seemed  at  the  time  a  great  advance 
upon  the  black,  old  packing-box  kind,  came  with  the 
great  growth  of  our  city  to  be  a  worse  peril  than 
what  had  gone  before.  But  what  we  got  was 
according  to  our  sense.  At  least  the  will  was  there. 
Money  was  raised  to  build  model  houses,  and  a  bill 
to  give  the  health  authorities  summary  powers  in 
dealing  with  tenements  was  sent  to  the  legislature. 
The  landlords  held  it  up  until  the  last  day  of  the 
session,  when  it  was  forced  through  by  an  angered 
public  opinion,  shorn  of  its  most  significant  clause, 
which  proposed  the  licensing  of  tenements  and  so 
their  control  and  effective  repression.  However, 
the  landlords  had  received  a  real  set-back.  Many 
of  them  got  rid  of  their  property,  which  in  a  large 
number  of  cases  they  had  never  seen,  and  tried  to 
forget  the  source  of  their  ill-gotten  wealth.     Light 


38 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


The  Rear  Tenement  grows  up.     An  Alley  condemned  by  the  Council 
of  Hygiene. 

and  air  did  find  their  way  into  the  tenements  in  a 
half-hearted  fashion,  and  we  began  to  count  the 
tenants  as  "souls."     That  is  another  of  our  mile- 


THE  OUTWORKS  OF  THE  SLUM  TAKEN 


39 


stones  in  the  history  of  New  York.  They  were 
never  reckoned  so  before ;  no  one  ever  thought  of 
them  as  "  souls."  So,  restored  to  human  fellow- 
ship, in  the  twilight  of  the  air-shaft  that  had  pene- 
trated to  their  dens,  the  first  Tenement  House 
Committee  ^  was  able  to  make  them  out  "  better 
than  the  houses  "  they  lived  in,  and  a  long  step  for- 
ward was  taken.  The 
Mulberry  Bend,  the 
wicked  core  of  the 
"bloody  Sixth  Ward," 
was  marked  for  destruc- 
tion, and  all  slumdom 
held  its  breath  to  see  it 
go.  With  that  gone, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  old 
days  must  be  gone  too, 
never  to  return.  There 
would  not  be  another 
Mulberry  Bend.  As 
long  as  it  stood,  there 
was  yet  a  chance.  The  slum  had  backing,  as  it  were. 
What  was  it  like }  says  a  man  at  my  elbow,  who 
never  saw  it.  Like  nothing  I  ever  saw  before,  or 
hope  ever  to  see  again.  A  crooked  three-acre  lot 
built  over  with  rotten  structures  that  harbored  the 

^  The  Adler  Tenement  House  Committee  of  1884.  It  was  the  first 
citizens'  commission.  The  legislative  inquiry  of  1856  was  conducted  by 
a  Select  Committee  of  the  Assembly. 


Professor  Felix  Adler. 


40  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

very  dregs  of  humanity.  Ordinary  enough  to 
look  at  from  the  street,  but  pierced  by  a  maze  of 
foul  alleys,  in  the  depths  of  which  skulked  the  tramp 
and  the  outcast  thief  with  loathsome  wrecks  that 
had  once  laid  claim  to  the  name  of  woman.  Every 
foot  of  it  reeked  with  incest  and  murder.  Bandits' 
Roost,  Bottle  Alley,  were  names  synonymous  with 
robbery  and  red-handed  outrage.  By  night,  in  its 
worst  days,  I  have  gone  poking  about  their  shudder- 
ing haunts  with  a  policeman  orf  the  beat,  and  come 
away  in  a  ferment  of  anger  and  disgust  that  would 
keep  me  awake  far  into  the  morning  hours  planning 
means  of  its  destruction.  That  was  what  it  was 
like.  Thank  God,  we  shall  never  see  another  such ! 
That  was  the  exhibit  that  urged  us  on.  But 
the  civic  conscience  was  not  very  robust  yet,  and' 
required  many  and  protracted  naps.  It  slumbered 
fitfully  eight  long  years,  waking  up  now  and  then 
with  a  start,  while  the  Bend  lay  stewing  in  its  slime. 
I  wondered  often,  in  those  years  of  delay,  if  it  was 
just  plain  stupidity  that  kept  the  politicians  from 
spending  the  money  which  the  law  had  put  within 
their  grasp ;  for  with  every  year  that  passed,  a  mill- 
ion dollars  that  could  have  been  used  for  small  park 
purposes  was  lost.^     But  they  were  wiser  than   I. 

^  The  Small  Parks  law  of  1887  allowed  the  expenditure  of  a  million 
dollars  a  year  for  the  making  of  neighborhood  parks ;  but  only  as  pay- 
ment for  work  done  or  property  taken.  If  not  used  in  any  one  year, 
that  year's  appropriation  was  lost. 


THE  OUTWORKS   OF   THE   SLUM   TAKEN 


41 


I  understood  when  I  saw  the  changes  which  letting 
in  the  sunshine  worked.  They  were  not  of  the 
kind  that  made  for  their  good.  We  had  all  be- 
lieved it,  but  they  knew  it  all  along.  At  the 
same  time,  they  lost  none  of  the  chances  that 
offered.  They  helped  the  landlords  in  the  Bend,  whc 
considered    themselves   greatly   aggrieved    because 


A  Cellar  Dive  In  the  Bend. 

their  property  was  thereafter  to  front  on  a  park 
instead  of  a  pigsty,  to  transfer  the  whole  assessment 
of  half  a  million  dollars  for  park  benefit  to  the  city. 
They  undid  in  less  than  six  weeks  what  it  had 
taken  considerably  more  than  six  years  to  do ;  but 
the  park  was  cheap  at  the  price.  We  could  afford 
to  pay  all  it  cost  to  wake  us  up.  When  finally, 
upon  the  wave  of  wrath  excited  by  the  Parkhurst 
and  Lexow  disclosures,  reform  came  with  a  shock 


42  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

that  dislodged  Tammany,  it  found  us  wide  awake, 
and,  it  must  be  admitted,  not  a  little  astonished  at 
our  sudden  access  of  righteousness. 

The  battle  went  against  the  slum  in  the  three 
years  that  followed,  until  it  found  backing  in  the 
"odium  of  reform "  that  became  the  issue  in  the 
municipal  organization  of  the  greater  city.  Tam- 
many made  notes.  The  cry  meant  that  we  were 
tired  of  too  much  virtue.  Of  what  was  done,  how 
it  was  done,  and  why,  during  those  years,  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  speak  further  in  these  pages. 
Here  I  wish  to  measure  the  stretch  we  have  come 
since  I  wrote  "  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,"  thirteen 
years  ago.  Some  of  it  we  came  plodding,  and 
some  at  full  speed ;  some  of  it  in  the  face  of  every 
obstacle  that  could  be  thrown  in  our  way,  wresting 
victory  from  defeat  at  every  step ;  some  of  it  with 
the  enemy  on  the  run.  Take  it  all  together,  it  is  a 
long  way.  Much  of  it  will  not  have  to  be  travelled 
over  again.  The  engine  of  municipal  progress^ 
once  started  as  it  has  been  in  New  York,  may  slip 
many  a  cog  with  Tammany  as  the  engineer ;  it  may 
even  be  stopped  for  a  season ;  but  it  can  never  be 
made  to  work  backward.  Even  Tammany  knows 
that,  and  gropes  desperately  for  a  new  hold,  a  cer- 
tificate of  character.  In  the  last  election  (1901)  she 
laid  loud  claim  to  having  built  many  new  schools, 
though    she   had   done   little   more   than  to  carry 


THE   OUTWORKS   OF  THE   SLUM   TAKEN  43 

out  the  plans  of  the  previous  reform  administration, 
where  they  could  not  be  upset.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  we  had  fallen  behind  again,  sadly.  But  even 
the  claim  was  significant. 

How  long  we  strove  for  those  schools,  to  no  pur- 
pose !  Our  arguments,  our  anger,  the  anxious 
pleading  of  philanthropists  who  saw  the  young  on 
the  East  Side  going  to  ruin,  the  warning  year  after 
year  of  the  superintendent  of  schools  that  the  com- 
pulsory education  law  was  but  an  empty  mockery 
where  it  was  most  needed,  the  knocking  of  un- 
counted thousands  of  children  for  whom  there  was 
no  room,  —  uncounted  in  sober  fact ;  there  was 
not  even  a  way  of  finding  out  how  many  were 
adrift/  —  brought  only  the  response  that  the  tax 
rate  must  be  kept  down.  Kept  down  it  was. 
"  Waste  "  was  successfully  averted  at  the  spigot ;  at 
the  bunghole  it  went  on  unchecked.  In  a  swarm- 
ing population  like  that  you  must  have  either 
schools  or  jails,  and  the  jails  waxed  fat  with  the 
overflow.  The  East  Side,  that  had  been  orderly, 
became  a  hotbed  of  child  crime.  And  when,  in 
answer  to  the  charge  made  by  a  legislative  com- 
mittee (1895)  that  the  father  forced  his  child  into 
the  shop,  on   a   perjured   age   certificate,  to   labor 

*  The  first  school  census  was  taken  in  1895  by  order  of  the  legisla- 
ture. It  showed  that  there  were  50,069  children  of  school  age  in  New 
York  City  out  of  school  and  unemployed.  The  number  had  been  vari- 
ously estimated  from  5000  to  150,000. 


44  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

when  he  ought  to  have  been  at  play,  that  father, 
bent  and  heavy-eyed  with  unceasing  toil,  flung  back 
the  charge  with  the  bitter  reproach  that  we  gave 
him  no  other  choice,  that  it  was  either  the  street  or 
the  shop  for  his  boy,  and  that  perjury  for  him  was 
cheaper  than  the  ruin  of  the  child,  we  were  mute. 
What,  indeed,  was  there  to  say?  The  crime  was 
ours,  not  his.  That  was  seven  years  ago.  Once 
since  then  have  we  been  where  we  could  count  the 
months  to  the  time  when  every  child  that  knocked 
should  find  a  seat  in  our  schools ;  but  Tammany 
came  back.  Once  again,  now,  we  are  catching  up. 
Yesterday  Mayor  Low's  reform  government  voted 
six  millions  of  dollars  for  new  schools.  The  school 
census  law  that  was  forgotten  almost  as  soon  as 
made  (the  census  was  to  be  taken  once  in  two  years, 
but  was  taken  only  twice)  is  to  be  enforced  again 
so  that  we  know  where  we  stand.  In  that  most 
crowded  neighborhood  in  all  the  world,  where  the 
superintendent  lately  pleaded  in  vain  for  three  new 
schools,  half  a  dozen  have  been  built,  the  finest  in 
this  or  any  other  land,  —  great,  light,  and  airy  struc- 
tures, with  playgrounds  on  the  roof;  and  all  over 
the  city  the  like  are  going  up.  The  briefest  of  our 
laws,  every  word  of  which  is  like  the  blow  of  a  ham- 
mer driving  the  nails  home  in  the  coffin  of  the  bad 
old  days,  says  that  never  one  shall  be  built  without 
its  playground. 


THE  OUTWORKS   OF  THE   SLUM   TAKEN  45 

And  not  for  the  child's  use  only.  The  band 
shall  play  there  yet  and  neighbor  meet  neighbor 
in  such  social  contact  as  the  slum  has  never  known 
to  its  undoing.  Even  as  I  write  this  the  band  is 
tuning  up  and  the  children  dancing  to  its  strains 
with  shouts  of  joy.  The  president  of  the  board  of 
education  and  members  of  the  board  lead  in  the 
revolt  against  the  old.  Clergymen  applaud  the 
opening  of  the  school  buildings  on  Sunday  for  con- 
certs, lectures,  and  neighborhood  meetings.  Com- 
mon sense  is  having  its  day.  The  streets  are 
cleaned. 

The  slum  has  even  been  washed.  We  tried  that 
on  Hester  Street  years  ago,  in  the  age  of  cobble- 
stone pavements,  and  the  result  fairly  frightened 
us.  I  remember  the  indignant  reply  of  a  well- 
known  citizen,  a  man  of  large  business  responsi- 
bility and  experience  in  the  handling  of  men,  to 
whom  the  office  of  street-cleaning  commissioner 
had  been  offered,  when  I  asked  him  if  he  would 
accept.  "  I  have  lived,"  he  said,  "  a  blameless  life 
for  forty  years,  and  have  a  character  in  the  com- 
munity. I  cannot  afford  —  no  man  with  a  reputa- 
tion can  afford  —  to  hold  that  office ;  it  will  surely 
wreck  it."  It  made  Colonel  Waring's  reputation. 
He  took  the  trucks  from  the  streets.  Tammany,  in 
a  brief  interregnum  of  vigor  under  Mayor  Grant, 
had  laid  the  axe  to  the  unsightly  telegraph    poles 


46 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


and  begun  to  pave  the  streets  with  asphalt,  but  it 
left  the  trucks  and  the  ash  barrels  to  Colonel  War- 
ing as  hopeless.  Trucks  have  votes ;  at  least  their 
drivers  have.     Now  that  they  are  gone,  the  drivers 


It  costs  a  Dollar  a  Month  to  sleep  in  these  Sheds. 

would  be  the  last  to  bring  them  back;  for  they 
have  children,  too,  and  the  rescued  streets  gave 
them  their  first  playground.  Perilous,  begrudged 
by  policeman  and  storekeeper,  though  it  was,  it 
was  still  a  playground. 

But  one  is  coming  in  which  the  boy  shall  rule 
unchallenged.  The  Mulberry  Bend  Park  kept  its 
promise.     Before  the  sod  was  laid  in  it  two  more 


THE   OUTWORKS   OF  THE   SLUM   TAKEN  47 

were  under  way  in  the  thickest  of  the  tenement 
house  crowding,  and  though  the  landscape  gardener 
has  tried  twice  to  steal  them,  he  will  not  succeed. 
Play  piers  and  play  schools  are  the  order  of  the  day. 
We  shall  yet  settle  the  "  causes  that  operated  soci- 
ologically "  on  the  boy  with  a  lawn-mower  and  a 
sand  heap.  You  have  got  your  boy,  and  the 
heredity  of  the  next  one,  when  you  can  order  his 
setting. 

Social  halls  for  the  older  people's  play  are  coming 
where  the  saloon  has  had  a  monopoly  of  the  cheer 
too  long.  The  labor  unions  and  the  reformers  work 
together  to  put  an  end  to  sweating  and  child-labor. 
The  gospel  of  less  law  and  more  enforcement  ac- 
quired standing  while  Theodore  Roosevelt  sat  in 
the  governors  chair  rehearsing  to  us  Jefferson's 
forgotten  lesson  that  "  the  whole  art  and  science 
of  government  consists  in  being  honest."  With  a 
back  door  to  every  ordinance  that  touched  the  lives 
of  the  people,  if  indeed  the  whole  thing  was  not  the 
subject  of  open  ridicule  or  the  vehicle  of  official 
blackmail,  it  seemed  as  if  we  had  provided  a  per- 
fect municipal  machinery  for  bringing  the  law  into 
contempt  with  the  young,  and  so  for  wrecking 
citizenship  by  the  shortest  cut. 

Of  free  soup  there  is  an  end.  It  was  never  food 
for  free  men.  The  last  spoonful  was  ladled  out  by 
yellow  journalism  with  the  certificate  of  the  men 


48  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

who  fought  Roosevelt  and  reform  in  the  poHce 
board  that  it  was  good.  It  is  not  Hkely  that  it 
will  ever  plague  us  again.  Our  experience  has 
taught  us  a  new  reading  of  the  old  word  that 
charity  covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  It  does.  Un- 
covering some  of  them  has  kept  us  busy  since 
our  conscience  awoke,  and  there  are  more  left. 
The  worst  of  them  all,  that  awful  parody  on  mu- 
nicipal charity,  the  police  station  lodging  room,  is 
gone,  after  twenty  years  of  persistent  attack  upon 
the  foul  dens,  —  years  during  which  they  were  ar- 
raigned, condemned,  indicted  by  every  authority 
having  jurisdiction,  all  to  no  purpose.  The  stale 
beer  dives  went  with  them  and  with  the  Bend, 
and  the  grip  of  the  tramp  on  our  throat  has  been 
loosened.  We  shall  not  easily  throw  it  off  alto- 
gether, for  the  tramp  has  a  vote,  too,  for  which 
Tammany,  with  admirable  ingenuity,  found  a  new 
use,  when  the  ante-election  inspection  of  lodging 
houses  made  them  less  available  for  colonization 
purposes  than  they  had  been.  Perhaps  I  should 
say  a  new  way  of  very  old  use.  It  was  simplicity 
itself.  Instead  of  keeping  tramps  in  hired  lodgings 
for  weeks  at  a  daily  outlay,  the  new  way  was  to 
send  them  all  to  the  island  on  short  commitments 
during  the  canvass,  and  vote  them  from  there  en 
bloc  at  the  city's  expense. 

Time   and   education   must    solve   that,   like  so 


THE  OUTWORKS  OF  THE  SLUM  TAKEN 


49 


many  other  problems  which  the  slum  has  thrust 
upon  us.  They  are  the  forces  upon  which,  when 
we  have  gone  as  far  as  our  present  supply  of  steam 


Mulberry  Street  Police  Station.     Waiting  for  the  Lodging  to  open. 

will  carry  us,  we  must  always  fall  back;  and  this 
we  may  do  with  confidence  so  long  as  we  keep 
stirring,  if  it  is  only  marking  time,  when  that  is  all 
that  can  be  done.  It  is  in  the  retrospect  that  one 
sees  how  far  we  have  come,  after  all,  and  from  that 


50  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

gathers  courage  for  the  rest  of  the  way.  Thirty-two 
years  have  passed  since  I  slept  in  a  police  station 
lodging  house,  a  lonely  lad,  and  was  robbed,  beaten, 
and  thrown  out  for  protesting ;  and  when  the  vagrant 
cur  that  had  joined  its  homelessness  to  mine,  and 
had  sat  all  night  at  the  door  waiting  for  me  to  come 
out,  —  it  had  been  clubbed  away  the  night  before, 
—  snarled  and  showed  its  teeth  at  the  doorman, 
raging  and  impotent  I  saw  it  beaten  to  death  on 
the  step.  I  little  dreamed  then  that  the  friendless 
beast,  dead,  should  prove  the  undoing  of  the  mon- 
strous wrong  done  by  the  maintenance  of  these 
evil  holes  to  every  helpless  man  and  woman  who 
was  without  shelter  in  New  York ;  but  it  did.  It  was 
after  an  inspection  of  the  lodging  rooms,  when  I 
stood  with  Theodore  Roosevelt,  then  president  of 
the  police  board,  in  the  one  where  I  had  slept  that 
night,  and  told  him  of  it,  that  he  swore  they  should 
go.  And  go  they  did,  as  did  so  many  another 
abuse  in  those  two  years  of  honest  purpose  and 
effort.  I  hated  them.  It  may  not  have  been  a  very 
high  motive  to  furnish  power  for  municipal  reform ; 
but  we  had  tried  every  other  way,  and  none  of  them 
worked.  Arbitration  is  good,  but  there  are  times 
when  it  becomes  necessary  to  knock  a  man  down 
and  arbitrate  sitting  on  him,  and  this  was  such  a 
time.  It  was  what  we  started  out  to  do  with  the 
rear  tenements,  the  worst  of  the  slum  barracks,  and 


THE   OUTWORKS   OF  THE  SLUM  TAKEN  5 1 

it  would  have  been  better  had  we  kept  on  that  track. 
I  have  always  maintained  that  we  made  a  false  move 
when  we  stopped  to  discuss  damages  with  the  land- 
lord, or  to  hear  his  side  of  it  at  all.  His  share  in  it 
was  our  grievance  ;  it  blocked  the  mortality  records 
with  its  burden  of  human  woe.  The  damage  was 
all  ours,  the  profit  all  his.  If  there  are  damages  to 
collect,  he  should  foot  the  bill,  not  we.  Vested 
rights  are  to  be  protected,  but,  as  I  have  said,  no 
man  has  a  right  to  be  protected  in  killing  his 
neighbor. 

However,  they  are  down,  the  worst  of  them. 
The  community  has  asserted  its  right  to  destroy 
tenements  that  destroy  life,  and  for  that  cause.  We 
bought  the  slum  off  in  the  Mulberry  Bend  at  its 
own  figure.  On  the  rear  tenements  we  set  the 
price,  and  set  it  low.  It  was  a  long  step.  Bottle 
Alley  is  gone,  and  Bandits'  Roost.  Bone  Alley, 
Thieves'  Alley,  and  Kerosene  Row,  —  they  are  all 
gone.  Hell's  Kitchen  and  Poverty  Gap  have  ac- 
quired standards  of  decency ;  Poverty  Gap  has  risen 
even  to  the  height  of  neckties.  The  time  is  fresh 
in  my  recollection  when  a  different  kind  of  necktie 
was  its  pride;  when  the  boy-murderer  —  he  was 
barely  nineteen  —  who  wore  it  on  the  gallows  took 
leave  of  the  captain  of  detectives  with  the  cheerful 
invitation  to  "come  over  to  the  wake.  They'll 
have  a  hell  of  a  time."     And  the  event  fully  re- 


52 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


deemed  the  promise.  The  whole  Gap  turned  out 
to  do  the  dead  bully  honor.  I  have  not  heard  from 
the  Gap,  and  hardly  from  Hell's  Kitchen,  in  five 
years.  The  last  news  from  the  Kitchen  was  when 
the  thin  wedge  of  a  column  of  negroes,  in  their  up- 


Night  in  Gotham  Court. 

town  migration,  tried  to  squeeze  in,  and  provoked 
a  race  war ;  but  that  in  fairness  should  not  be  laid 
up  against  it.  In  certain  local  aspects  it  might  be 
accounted  a  sacred  duty;  as  much  so  as  to  get 
drunk  and  provoke  a  fight  on  the  anniversary  of  the 
battle  of  the  Boyne.  But  on  the  whole  the  Kitchen 
has  grown  orderly.     The  gang  rarely  beats  a  police- 


THE   OUTWORKS  OF  THE   SLUM   TAKEN  53 

man  nowadays,  and  it  has  not  killed  one  in  a  long 
while. 

So,  one  after  another,  the  outworks  of  the  slum 
have  been  taken.  It  has  been  beaten  in  many 
battles;  even  to  the  double-decker  tenement  on 
the  twenty-five-foot  lot  have  we  put  a  stop.  But 
its  legacy  is  with  us  in  the  habitations  of  two 
million  souls.  This  is  the  sore  spot,  and  as  against 
it  all  the  rest  seems  often  enough  unavailing.  Yet 
it  cannot  be.  It  is  true  that  the  home,  about 
which  all  that  is  to  work  for  permanent  progress 
must  cluster,  is  struggling  against  desperate  odds 
in  the  tenement,  and  that  the  struggle  has  been 
reflected  in  the  morals  of  the  people,  in  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  young,  to  an  alarming  extent ;  but  it 
must  be  that  the  higher  standards  now  set  up  on 
every  hand,  in  the  cleaner  streets,  in  the  better 
schools,  in  the  parks  and  the  clubs,  in  the  settle- 
ments, and  in  the  thousand  and  one  agencies  for 
good  that  touch  and  help  the  lives  of  the  poor 
at  as  many  points,  will  tell  at  no  distant  day,  and 
react  upon  the  homes  and  upon  their  builders.  In 
fact,  we  know  it  is  so  from  our  experience  last  fall, 
when  the  summons  to  battle  for  the  people's  homes 
came  from  the  young  on  the  East  Side.  It  was 
their  fight  for  the  very  standards  I  spoke  of,  their 
reply  to  the  appeal  they  made  to  them. 

To  any  one  who  knew  that  East  Side  ten  years 


54  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

ago,  the  difference  between  that  day  and  this  in  the 
appearance  of  the  children  whom  he  sees  there  must 
be  striking.  Rags  and  dirt  are  now  the  exception 
rather  than  the  rule.  Perhaps  the  statement  is  a 
trifle  too  strong  as  to  the  dirt ;  but  dirt  is  not  harm- 
ful except  when  coupled  with  rags ;  it  can  be 
washed  off,  and  nowadays  is  washed  off  where  such 
a  thing  would  have  been  considered  affectation  in 
the  days  that  were.  Soap  and  water  have  worked  a 
visible  cure  already  that  goes  more  than  skin-deep. 
They  are  moral  agents  of  the  first  value  in  the  slum. 
And  the  day  is  coming  soon  now,  when  with  real 
rapid  transit  and  the  transmission  of  power  to  subur- 
ban workshops  the  reason  for  the  outrageous  crowd- 
ing shall  cease  to  exist.  It  has  been  a  long  while, 
a  whole  century  of  city  packing,  closer  and  more 
close;  but  it  looks  as  if  the  tide  were  to  turn  at 
last.  Meanwhile,  philanthropy  is  not  sitting  idle 
and  waiting.  It  is  building  tenements  on  the  hu- 
mane plan  that  lets  in  sunshine  and  air  and  hope. 
It  is  putting  up  hotels  deserving  of  the  name  for  the 
army  that  but  just  now  had  no  other  home  than  the 
cheap  lodging  houses  which  Inspector  Byrnes  fitly 
called  "  nurseries  of  crime."  These  also  are  stand- 
ards from  which  there  is  no  backing  down,  even  if 
coming  up  to  them  is  slow  work :  and  they  are  here 
to  stay,  for  they  pay.  That  is  the  test.  Not  charity, 
but  justice,  —  that  is  the  gospel  which  they  preach. 


THE  OUTWORKS   OF  THE  SLUM   TAKEN 


55 


Flushed  with  the  success  of  many  victories,  we 
challenged  the  slum  to  a  fight  to  the  finish  in  1897, 
and  bade  it  come  on.  It  came  on.  On  our  side 
fought  the  bravest  and  best.  The  man  who  mar- 
shalled the  citizen  forces  for  their  candidate  had 
been  foremost  in  building  homes,  in  erecting  baths 
for  the  people,  in  directing  the  self-sacrificing  labors 


A  Mulberry  Bend  Alley. 

of  the  oldest  and  worthiest  of  the  agencies  for 
improving  the  condition  of  the  poor.  With  him 
battled  men  who  had  given  lives  of  patient  study 
and  effort  to  the  cause  of  helping  their  fellow-men. 
Shoulder  to  shoulder  with  them  stood  the  thought- 
ful workingman  from  the  East  Side  tenement. 
The  slum,  too,  marshalled  its  forces.  Tammany 
produced    its   notes.     It   pointed   to   the   increased 


56  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

tax  rate,  showed  what  it  had  cost  to  build  schools 
and  parks  and  to  clean  house,  and  called  it  criminal 
recklessness.  The  issue  was  made  sharp  and  clear. 
The  war  cry  of  the  slum  was  characteristic :  "  To 
hell  with  reform ! "  We  all  remember  the  result. 
Politics  interfered,  and  turned  victory  into  defeat. 
We  were  beaten.  I  shall  never  forget  that  election 
night.  I  walked  home  through  the  Bowery  in  the 
midnight  hour,  and  saw  it  gorging  itself,  like  a 
starved  wolf,  upon  the  promise  of  the  morrow. 
Drunken  men  and  women  sat  in  every  doorway, 
howling  ribald  songs  and  curses.  Hard  faces  I  had 
not  seen  for  years  showed  themselves  about  the 
dives.  The  mob  made  merry  after  its  fashion. 
The  old  days  were  coming  back.  Reform  was 
dead,  and  decency  with  it. 

A  year  later,  I  passed  that  same  way  on  the 
night  of  election.^  The  scene  was  strangely 
changed.  The  street  was  unusually  quiet  for  such 
a  time.  Men  stood  in  groups  about  the  saloons, 
and  talked  in  whispers,  with  serious  faces.  The 
name  of  Roosevelt  was  heard  on  every  hand.  The 
dives  were  running,  but  there  was  no  shouting,  and 
violence  was  discouraged.  When,  on  the  following 
day,  I  met  the  proprietor  of  one  of  the  oldest  con- 
cerns in  the  Bowery,  —  which,  while  doing- a  legiti- 

1  1898,  when  Roosevelt  was  elected  Governor  after  a  fierce  fight  with 
Tammany. 


In  the  hallway  1  ran  across  two  children,  little  tots,  who  were 
inquiring  their  way  to  'the  commissioner.'  " 


THE   OUTWORKS   OF   THE  SLUM   TAKEN  59 

mate  business,  caters  necessarily  to  its  crowds,  and 
therefore  sides  with  them,  —  he  told  me  with  bitter 
reproach  how  he  had  been  stricken  in  pocket.  A 
gambler  had  just  been  in  to  see  him,  who  had  come 
on  from  the  far  West,  in  anticipation  of  a  wide-open 
town,  and  had  got  all  ready  to  open  a  house  in  the 
Tenderloin.  "  He  brought  ^40,000  to  put  in  the 
business,  and  he  came  to  take  it  away  to  Baltimore. 

Just  now  the  cashier  of Bank  told  me  that  two 

other  gentlemen  —  gamblers  .f*  yes,  that's  what  you 
call  them  —  had  drawn  $130,000  which  they  would 
have  invested  here,  and  had  gone  after  him.  Think 
of  all  that  money  gone  to  Baltimore !  That's  what 
you've  done ! " 

I  went  over  to  police  headquarters,  thinking  of 
the  sad  state  of  that  man,  and  in  the  hallway  I  ran 
across  two  children,  little  tots,  who  were  inquiring 
their  way  to  "the  commissioner."  The  older  was 
a  hunchback  girl,  who  led  her  younger  brother  (he 
could  not  have  been  over  five  or  six  years  old)  by 
the  hand.  They  explained  their  case  to  me.  They 
came  from  Allen  Street.  Some  "  bad  ladies  "  had 
moved  into  the  tenement,  and  when  complaint  was 
made  that  sent  the  police  there,  the  children's 
father,  who  was  a  poor  Jewish  tailor,  was  blamed. 
The  tenants  took  it  out  of  the  boy  by  punching  his 
nose  till  it  bled.  Whereupon  the  children  went 
straight   to    Mulberry  Street  to  see  "  the  commis- 


60  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

sioner"  and  get  justice.  It  was  the  first  time  in 
twenty  years  that  I  had  known  Allen  Street  to 
come  to  police  headquarters  for  justice  and  in  the 
discovery  that  the  legacy  of  Roosevelt  had  reached 
even  to  the  little  children  I  read  the  doom  of  the 
slum,  despite  its  loud  vauntings. 

No,  it  was  not  true  that  reform  was  dead,  with 
decency.  We  had  our  innings  four  years  later  and 
proved  it;  of  which  more  farther  on.  It  was  not 
the  slum  that  had  won ;  it  was  we  who  had  lost. 
We  were  not  up  to  the  mark,  —  not  yet.  We  may 
lose  again,  more  than  once,  but  even  our  losses  shall 
be  our  gains,  if  we  learn  from  them.  And  we  are 
doing  that.  New  York  is  a  many  times  cleaner 
and  better  city  to-day  than  it  was  twenty  or  even 
ten  years  ago.  Then  I  was  able  to  grasp  easily  the 
whole  plan  for  wresting  it  from  the  neglect  and 
indifference  that  had  put  us  where  we  were.  It 
was  chiefly,  almost  wholly,  remedial  in  its  scope. 
Now  it  is  preventive,  constructive,  and  no  ten  men 
could  gather  all  the  threads  and  hold  them.  We 
have  made,  are  making,  headway,  and  no  Tammany 
has  the  power  to  stop  us.  They  know  it,  too,  at  the 
Hall,  and  were  in  such  frantic  haste  to  fill  their 
pockets  this  last  time  that  they  abandoned  their  old 
ally,  the  tax  rate,  and  the  pretence  of  making  bad 
government  cheap  government.  Tammany  dug  its 
arms  into  the  treasury  fairly  up  to  the  elbows,  rais- 


THE  OUTWORKS   OF  THE   SLUM  TAKEN  6 1 

ing  taxes,  assessments,  and  salaries  all  at  once,  and 
collecting  blackmail  from  everything  in  sight.  Its 
charges  for  the  lesson  it  taught  us  came  high; 
but  we  can  afford  to  pay  them.  If  to  learning 
it  we  add  common  sense,  we  shall  discover  the 
bearings  of  it  all  without  trouble.  Yesterday  I 
picked  up  a  book,  —  a  learned  disquisition  on  gov- 
ernment, —  and  read  on  the  title-page,  "  Affection- 
ately dedicated  to  all  who  despise  politics."  That 
was  not  common  sense.  To  win  the  battle  with 
the  slum,  we  must  not  begin  by  despising  politics. 
We  have  been  doing  that  too  long.  The  politics 
of  the  slum  are  apt  to  be  like  the  slum  itself,  dirty. 
Then  they  must  be  cleaned.  It  is  what  the  fight 
is  about.  Politics  are  the  weapon.  We  must  learn 
to  use  it  so  as  to  cut  straight  and  sure.  That  is 
common  sense,  and  the  golden  rule  as  applied  to 
Tammany. 

Some  years  ago,  the  United  States  government 
conducted  an  inquiry  into  the  slums  of  great  cities. 
To  its  staff  of  experts  was  attached  a  chemist,  who 
gathered  and  isolated  a  lot  of  bacilli  with  fearsome 
Latin  names,  in  the  tenements  where  he  went. 
Among  those  he  labelled  were  the  Staphylococcus 
pyogenes  albus^  the  Micrococcus  fervidosus,  the  Sac- 
charomyces  rosaceus,  and  the  Bacillus  buccalis  for- 
tuitus.  I  made  a  note  of  the  names  at  the  time, 
because  of  the  dread  with  which  they  inspired  me. 


62  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

But  I  searched  the  collection  in  vain  for  the  real 
bacillus  of  the  slum.  It  escaped  science,  to  be 
identified  by  human  sympathy  and  a  conscience- 
stricken  community  with  that  of  ordinary  human 
selfishness.  The  antitoxin  has  been  found,  and  it 
is  applied  successfully.  Since  justice  has  replaced 
charity  on  the  prescription  the  patient  is  improving. 
And  the  improvement  is  not  confined  to  him ;  it  is 
general.  Conscience  is  not  a  local  issue  in  our  day. 
A  few  years  ago,  a  United  States  senator  sought 
reelection  on  the  platform  that  the  decalogue  and 
the  golden  rule  were  glittering  generalities  that  had 
no  place  in  politics,  and  lost.  We  have  not  quite 
reached  the  millennium  yet,  but  since  then  a  man 
was  governor  in  the  Empire  State,  elected  on  the 
pledge  that  he  would  rule  by  the  ten  command- 
ments. These  are  facts  that  mean  much  or  little, 
according  to  the  way  one  looks  at  them.  The  sig- 
nificant thing  is  that  they  are  facts,  and  that,  in 
spite  of  slipping  and  sliding,  the  world  moves  for- 
ward, not  backward.  The  poor  we  shall  have 
always  with  us,  but  the  slum  we  need  not  have. 
These  two  do  not  rightfully  belong  together.  Their 
present  partnership  is  at  once  poverty's  worst  hard- 
ship and  our  worst  blunder. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    devil's    money 

That  was  what  the  women  called  it,  and  the 
name  stuck  and  killed  the  looters.  The  young  men 
of  the  East  Side  began  it,  and  the  women  finished  it. 
It  was  a  campaign  of  decency  against  Tammany, 
that  one  of  1901  of  which  I  am  going  to  make  the 
record  brief  as  may  be,  for  we  all  remember  it ;  and 
also,  thank  God,  that  decency  won  the  fight. 

If  ever  inhuman  robbery  deserved  the  name,  that 
which  caused  the  downfall  of  Tammany  surely  did. 
Drunk  with  the  power  and  plunder  of  four  long 
unchallenged  years,  during  which  the  honest  name 
of  democracy  was  pilloried  in  the  sight  of  all  men 
as  the  active  partner  of  blackmail  and  the  brothel, 
the  monstrous  malignity  reached  a  point  at  last 
where  it  was  no  longer  to  be  borne.  Then  came 
the  crash.  The  pillory  lied.  Tammany  is  no 'more 
a  political  organization  than  it  is  the  benevolent 
concern  it  is  innocently  supposed  to  be  by  some 
people  who  never  learn.  It  neither  knows  nor 
cares  for  principles.  "  Koch  ? "  said  its  President  of 
the  Health  Department  when  mention  was  made  in 

63 


64  THE  BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

his  hearing  of  the  authority  of  the  great  German 
doctor,  "who  is  that  man  Koch  you  are  talking 
about  ?  "  And  he  was  typical  of  the  rest.  His  func- 
tion was  to  collect  the  political  revenue  of  the  de- 
partment, and  the  city  was  overrun  with  smallpox 
for  the  first  time  in  thirty  years.  The  police  force,  of 
whom  Roosevelt  had  made  heroes,  became  the  tools 
of  robbers.  Robbery  is  the  business  of  Tammany. 
For  that,  and  for  that  only,  is  it  organized.  Poli- 
tics are  merely  the  convenient  pretence.  I  do 
not  mean  that  every  Tammany  man  is  a  thief. 
Probably  the  great  majority  of  its  adherents  hon- 
estly believe  that  it  stands  for  something  worth 
fighting  for, — for  personal  freedom,  for  the  people's 
cause, — and  their  delusion  is  the  opportunity  of 
scoundrels.  They  have  never  understood  its  or- 
ganization or  read  its  history. 

For  a  hundred  years  that  has  been  an  almost 
unbroken  record  of  fraud  and  peculation.  Its  very 
founder,  William  Mooney,  was  charged  with  being 
a  deserter  from  the  patriot  army  to  the  British 
forces.  He  was  later  on  removed  from  office  as 
superintendent  of  the  almshouse  for  swindling  the 
city.  Aaron  Burr  plotted  treason  within  its  coun- 
cils. The  briefest  survey  of  the  administration  of 
the  metropolis  from  his  day  down  to  that  of  Tweed 
shows  a  score  of  its  conspicuous  leaders  removed, 
indicted,  or  tried,  for  default,  bribe-taking,  or  theft ; 


THE   DEVIL'S   MONEY  65 

and  the  fewest  were  punished.  The  civic  history 
of  New  York  to  the  present  day  is  one  long  strug- 
gle to  free  itself  from  its  blighting  grip.  Its  people's 
parties,  its  committees  of  seventy,  were  ever  emer- 
gency measures  to  that  end,  but  they  succeeded 
only  for  a  season.  There  have  been  decent  Tam- 
many mayors,  but  no't  for  long.  There  have  been 
attempts  to  reform  the  organization  from  within, 
but  they  have  been  failures.  You  cannot  reform  an 
"  organized  appetite  "  except  by  reforming  it  away. 
And  then  there  would  be  nothing  left  of  the  organi- 
zation. 

For  whatever  the  rank  and  file  have  believed,  the 
organization  has  never  been  anything  else  but  the 
means  of  satisfying  the  appetite  that  never  will  be 
cloyed.  Whatever  principles  it  has  professed,  they 
have  served  the  purpose  only  of  filling  the  pockets 
of  the  handful  of  men  who  rule  its  inner  councils 
and  use  it  to  their  own  enrichment  and  our  loss  and 
disgrace.  We  have  heard  its  most  successful  leader 
testify  brazenly  before  the  Mazet  legislative  com- 
mittee that  he  was  in  politics  working  for  his  own 
pocket  all  the  time.  That  was  his  principle.  And 
his  followers  applauded  till  the  room  rang. 

That  is  the  Tammany  which  has  placed  murderers 
and  gamblers  in  its  high  seats.  That  is  the  Tam- 
many which  you  have  to  fight  at  every  step  when 
battling  with  the  slum;    the  Tammany  which,  un- 


eS  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

masked  and  beaten  by  the  Parkhurst  and  Lexow 
disclosures,  came  back  with  the  Greater  New  York 
to  exploit  the  opportunity  reform  had  made  for  itself, 
and  gave  us  a  lesson  we  will  not  soon  forget.  For 
at  last  it  dropped  all  pretence  and  showed  its  real 
face  to  us. 

Civil  service  reform  was  thrown  to  the  winds ;  the 
city  departments  were  openly  parcelled  out  among 
the  district  leaders:  a  $2000  office  to  one,  —  two 
$1000  to  another  to  even  up.  That  is  the  secret 
of  the  "  organization  "  which  politicians  admire.  It 
does  make  a  strong  body.  How  it  served  the  city 
in  one  department,  the  smallpox  epidemic  bore  wit- 
ness. That  department,  the  pride  of  the  city  and  its 
mainstay  in  days  of  danger,  was  wrecked.  The  first 
duty  of  the  new  president,  when  the  four  years 
were  over  and  Tammany  out  again,  ^vas  to  remove 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  useless  employees. 
Their  only  function  had  been  to  draw  the  salaries 
which  the  city  paid.  The  streets  that  had  been 
clean  became  dirty — the  "voter"  was  back  "behind 
the  broom  "  —  and  they  swarmed  once  more  with 
children  for  whom  there  was  no  room  in  school. 
Officials  who  drew  big  salaries  starved  the  inmates 
of  the  almshouse  on  weak  tea  and  dry  bread,  and 
Bellevue,  the  poor  people's  hospital,  became  a  public 
scandal.  In  one  night  there  were  five  drunken 
fights,  one  of  them  between  two  of  the  attendants 


THE   DEVIL'S   MONEY  67 

who  dropped  the  corpse  they  were  carrying  to  the 
morgue  and  fought  over  it.  The  tenements  were 
plunged  back  into  the  foulness  of  their  worst  day ; 
the  inspectors  were  answerable,  not  to  the  Health 
Board,  but  to  the  district  leader,  and  the  landlord 
who  stood  well  with  him  thumbed  his  nose  at  them 
and  at  their  orders  to  clean  up.  The  neighborhood 
parks,  acquired  at  such  heavy  sacrifice,  lay  waste. 
Tammany  took  no  step  toward  improving  them. 
One  it  did  take  up  at  Fort  George ;  and  though 
the  property  only  cost  the  city  $600,000,  the  bills  for 
taking  it  were  $127,467.  That  is  the  true  Tam- 
many style.  In  the  Seward  Park,  where  the  need 
of  relief  was  greatest,  Tammany  election  district  cap- 
tains built  booths,  rent  free,  for  the  sale  of  dry  goods 
and  fish.  That  was  "  their  share."  Wealthy  corpo- 
rations were  made  to  pay  heavily  for  "  peace  " ;  timid 
storekeepers  were  blackmailed.  One,  a  Jew,  told  his 
story :  he  was  ordered  to  pay  five  dollars  a  week  for 
privilege  of  keeping  open  Sundays.  He  paid,  and 
they  asked  ten.  When  he  refused,  he  was  told  that 
it  would  be  the  worse  for  him.  He  closed  up.  The 
very  next  week  he  was  sued  for  a  hundred  dollars 
by  a  man  of  whom  he  had  never  borrowed  anything. 
He  did  not  defend  the  suit,  and  it  went  against  him. 
In  three  days  the  sheriff  was  in  his  store.  He  knew 
the  hopelessness  of  it  then,  and  went  out  and  mort- 
gaged his  store  and  paid  the  bill.     The  next  week 


68  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

another  man  sued  him  for  a  hundred  dollars  he  did 
not  owe.  He  went  and  threw  himself  on  his  mercy, 
and  the  man  let  him  off  for  the  costs. 

He  was  one  of  the  many  thousands  of  toilers 
who  look  with  fear  to  the  approaching  summer  be- 
cause it  is  then  the  hot  tenement  kills  their  babies. 
Their  one  chance  of  life  then  depends  upon  the 
supply  of  ice  that  is  hawked  from  door  to  door  in 
small  pieces,  since  tenements  have  rarely  other 
refrigerator  than  the  draughty  airshaft.  The  greed 
of  politicians  plotted  to  deprive  them  of  even  this 
chance.  They  had  control  of  docks  and  means 
of  transportation  and  they  cornered  the  supply, 
raising  the  price  from  thirty  to  sixty  cents  a  hun- 
dred pounds  and  suppressing  the  five-cent  piece. 
Some  of  them  that  sat  in  high  official  station  grew 
rich,  but  the  poor  man's  babies  died  and  he  saw 
at  last  the  quality  of  the  friendship  Tammany  pro- 
fessed for  him.  The  push-cart  pedlers,  blackmailed 
and  driven  from  pillar  to  post,  saw  it.  They  had 
escaped  from  unbearable  tyranny  in  their  old  home 
to  find  a  worse  where  they  thought  to  be  free ;  for 
to  their  oppressors  yonder  at  least  their  women 
were  sacred. 

It  is  difficult  to  approach  calmly  what  is  left  of 
the  diabolical  recital.  The  police,  set  once  more 
to  collecting  blackmail  from  saloon  keepers,  gam- 
bling hells,  policy  shops,  and  houses  of  ill  fame, 


THE   DEVIL'S   MONEY  69 

under  a  chief  who  on  a  policeman's  pay  became 
in  a  few  short  years  fairly  bloated  with  wealth,  sank 
to  the  level  of  their  occupation  or  into  helpless  or 
hopeless  compliance  with  the  apparently  inevitable. 
The  East  Side,  where  the  home  struggled  against 
such  heavy  odds,  became  a  sinkhole  of  undreamt-of 
corruption.  The  tenements  were  overrun  with  lewd 
women  who  paid  the  police  for  protection  and  re- 
ceived it.  Back  of  them  the  politician  who  controlled 
all  and  took  the  profits.  This  newspaper  arraign- 
ment published  in  January,  1901,  tells  the  bald  truth : 

"  Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  section  of  the  city  territory 
completely  dominated  by  one  man,  without  whose 
permission  neither  legitimate  nor  illegitimate  busi- 
ness can  be  conducted ;  where  illegitimate  business 
is  encouraged  and  legitimate  business  discouraged ; 
where  the  respectable  residents  have  to  fasten  their 
doors  and  windows  summer  nights  and  sit  in  their 
rooms  with  asphyxiating  air  and  one  hundred  de- 
grees temperature,  rather  than  try  to  catch  the  faint 
whiff  of  breeze  in  their  natural  breathing  places  — 
the  stoops  of  their  homes ;  where  naked  women 
dance  by  night  in  the  streets,  and  unsexed  men 
prowl  like  vultures  through  the  darkness  on  "  busi- 
ness "  not  only  permitted,  but  encouraged,  by  the 
police ;  where  the  education  of  infants  begins  with 
the  knowledge  of  prostitution  and  the  training  of 
little  girls  is  training  in  the  arts  of  Phryne ;  where 
American  girls  brought  up  with  the  refinements 
of  American  homes  are  imported  from  small  towns 
up-state,     Massachusetts,    Connecticut,    and     New 


70  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

Jersey,  and  kept  as  virtually  prisoners  as  if  they 
were  locked  up  behind  jail  bars  until  they  have 
lost  all  semblance  of  womanhood ;  where  small 
boys  are  taught  to  solicit  for  the  women  of  dis- 
orderly houses ;  where  there  is  an  organized  society 
of  young  men  whose  sole  business  in  life  is  to  cor- 
rupt young  girls  and  turn  them  over  to  bawdy 
houses ;  where  men  walking  with  their  wives  along 
the  street  are  openly  insulted ;  where  children  that 
have  adult  diseases  are  the  chief  patrons  of  the 
hospitals  and  dispensaries;  where  it  is  the  rule, 
rather  than  the  exception,  that  murder,  rape,  rob- 
bery, and  theft  go  unpunished  —  in  short,  where 
the  premium  of  the  most  awful  forms  of  vice  is  the 
profit  of  the  politicians. 

"  There  is  no  '  wine,  woman,  and  song '  over 
there.  The  '  wine '  is  stale  beer,  the  '  woman '  is  a 
degraded  money-making  machine,  and  the  'song' 
is  the  wail  of  the  outraged  innocent.  The  political 
backers  have  got  it  down  to  what  has  been  called 
a  'cash-register,  commutation-ticket  basis,'  called 
so  from  the  fact  that  in  some  of  these  places  they 
issued  tickets,  on  the  plan  of  a  commutation  meal- 
ticket,  and  had  cash  registers  at  the  entries." 

Lest  some  one  think  the  newspaper  exaggerating 
after  all,  let  me  add  Bishop  Potter's  comment  before 
his  Diocesan  Convention.  He  will  not  be  sus- 
pected of  sensationalism: 

"  The  corrupt  system,  whose  infamous  details 
have  been  steadily  uncovered  to  our  increasing 
horror  and  humiliation,  was  brazenly  ignored  by 
those  who  were  fattening  on  its  spoils;  and  the 
world  was  presented  with  the  astounding  spectacle 


THE  DEVIL'S   MONEY 


n 


of  a  great  municipality  whose  civic  mechanism 
was  largely  employed  in  trading  in  the  bodies  and 
souls  of  the  innocent  and  defenceless.  What  has 
been  published  in  this  connection  is  but  the  merest 
hint  of  what  exists  —  and  exists,  most  appalling  of 
all,  as  the  evidence  has  come  to  me  under  the  seal 
of  confidence  in  overwhelming  volume  and  force 
to  demonstrate  —  under  a  system  of  terrorism  which 
compels  its  victims  to  recognize  that  to  denounce 
it  means  the  utter  ruin,  so  far  as  all  their  worldly 
interests  are  concerned,  of  those  who  dare  to  do  so. 
This  infamous  organization  for  making  merchan- 
dise of  girls  and  boys,  and  defenceless  men  and 
women,  has  adroitly  sought  to  obscure  a  situation 
concerning  which  all  honest  people  are  entirely 
clear,  by  saying  that  vice  cannot  be  wholly  sup- 
pressed. Nobody  has  made  upon  the  authorities 
of  New  York  any  such  grotesque  demand.  All 
that  our  citizens  have  asked  is  that  the  government 
of  the  city  shall  not  be  employed  to  protect  a  trade 
in  vice,  which  is  carried  on  for  the  benefit  of  a 
political  organization.  The  case  is  entirely  clear. 
No  Mephistophelian  cunning  can  obscure  it,  and 
I  thank  God  that  there  is  abundant  evidence  that 
the  end  of  such  a  condition  of  things  is  not  far  off." 

It  was,  indeed,  coming.  But  Tammany,  gorged 
with  power  and  the  lust  of  it,  neither  saw  nor 
heeded.  At  a  meeting  of  young  men  on  the  East 
Side,  one  of  them,  responding  to  an  address  by 
Felix  Adler,  drew  such  a  heart-rending  picture  of 
the  conditions  prevailing  there  that  the  echoes  of 
the  meeting  found  its  way  into  the  farthest  places.: 


72  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

"  Now  you  go,"  he  said,  "  to  your  quiet  home  in 
a  decent  street  where  no  harm  comes  to  you  or 
your  wife  or  children  in  the  night,  for  it  is  their 
home.  And  we  —  we  go  with  our  high  resolves, 
the  noble  ambitions  you  have  stirred,  to  our  tene- 
ments where  evil  lurks  in  the  darkness  at  every 
step,  where  innocence  is  murdered  in  babyhood, 
where  mothers  bemoan  the  birth  of  a  daughter  as 
the  last  misfortune,  where  virtue  is  sold  into  a  worse 
slavery  than  ever  our  fathers  knew,  and  our  sisters 
betrayed  by  paid  panders ;  where  the  name  of  home 
is  as  a  bitter  mockery,  for  alas!  we  have  none. 
These  are  the  standards  to  which  we  go  from  here." 
And  then  followed  the  whole  amazing  story  of  damn- 
ing conspiracy  between  power  and  vice  in  those 
tenements  before  which  a  whole  city  stood  aghast. 

A  meeting  was  called  the  following  day  by  Dr. 
Adler,  of  men  and  women  who  had  the  welfare  of 
their  city  at  heart,  and  when  they  had  heard  the 
story,  they  resolved  that  they  would  not  rest  till 
those  things  were  no  longer  true.  One  of  their 
number  was  the  Rev.  Robert  Paddock,  the  priest 
in  charge  of  Bishop  Potter's  Pro-Cathedral,  right  in 
the  heart  of  it  all  in  Stanton  Street.  He  set  about 
gathering  evidence  that  would  warrant  the  arraign- 
ment of  the  evil-doers  in  his  district ;  but  when  he 
brought  it  to  the  police  he  was  treated  with  scorn 
and  called  liar. 


THE   DEVIL'S   MONEY  73 

The  measure  was  nearly  full.  Bishop  Potter 
came  back  from  the  East,  where  he  had  been  travel- 
ling, and  met  his  people.  Out  of  that  meeting  came 
the  most  awful  arraignment  of  a  city  government 
which  the  world  has  ever  heard.  "  Nowhere  else  on 
earth,"  the  Bishop  wrote  to  the  Mayor  of  New 
York,  "certainly  not  in  any  civilized  or  Christian 
community,  does  there  exist  such  a  situation  as 
defiles  and  dishonors  New  York  to-day." 

"  In  the  name  of  these  little  ones,"  his  letter  ran, 
"these  weak  and  defenceless  ones.  Christian  and 
Hebrew  alike,  of  many  races  and  tongues,  but 
homes  in  which  God  is  feared  and  His  law  revered, 
and  virtue  and  decency  honored  and  exemplified, 
I  call  upon  you,  sir,  to  save  these  people,  who  are 
in  a  very  real  way  committed  to  your  charge,  from 
a  living  hell,  defiling,  deadly,  damning,  to  which  the 
criminal  supineness  of  the  constituted  authorities 
set  for  the  defence  of  decency  and  good  order, 
threatens  to  doom  them." 

The  Mayor's  virtual  response  was  to  put  the 
corrupt  Chief  of  Police  in  practically  complete  and 
irresponsible  charge  of  the  force.  Richard  Croker, 
the  boss  of  Tammany  Hall,  had  openly  counselled 
violence  at  the  election  then  pending  (1900),  and 
the  Chief  in  a  general  order  to  the  force  repeated 
the  threat.  But  they  had  reckoned  without  Gov- 
ernor   Roosevelt.       He    compelled    the    Mayor    to 


74  THE  BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

have  the  order  rescinded,  and  removed  the  District 
Attorney  who  had  been  elected  on  the  compact 
platform  "  to  hell  with  reform."  The  whole  city 
was  aroused.  The  Chamber  of  Commerce  formed 
a  Committee  of  Fifteen  which  soon  furnished  evi- 
dence without  stint  of  the  corruption  that  was 
abroad.  The  connection  between  the  police  and  the 
gambling  dens  was  demonstrated,  and  also  that  the 
police  were  the  mere  tools  of  "  politics."  In  237  tene- 
ments that  were  investigated  290  flats  were  found 
harboring  prostitutes  in  defiance  of  law.  The  police 
were  compelled  to  act.  The  "  Cadets,"  who  lived 
by  seducing  young  girls  and  selling  them  to  their 
employer  at  ^25  a  head,  were  arrested  and  sent  to 
jail  for  long  terms.  They  showed  fight,  and  it 
developed  that  they  had  a  regular  organization  with 
political  afifiliations. 

The  campaign  of  1901  approached.  Judge 
Jerome  went  upon  the  stump  and  rattled  the  brass 
checks  from  the  cash-register  that  paid  for  the  vir- 
tue of  innocent  girls,  the  daughters  of  his  hearers. 
The  mothers  of  the  East  Side,  the  very  Tammany 
women  themselves,  rose  and  denounced  the  devil's 
money,  and  made  their  husbands  and  brothers  go  to 
the  polls  and  vote  their  anger.^     The  world  knows 

^  Up  to  that  time  I  wrote  of  Tammany  as  "  she  " ;  but  I  dropped  it 
then  as  an  outrage  upon  the  sex.  "It"  it  is  and  will  remain  hereafter. 
I  am  ashamed  of  ever  having  put  the  stigma  on  the  name  of  woman. 


THE   DEVIL'S  MONEY  75 

the  rest.  The  "  Red  Light "  of  the  East  Side  damned 
Tammany  to  defeat.  Seth  Low  was  elected  mayor. 
Decency  once  more  moved  into  the  City  Hall  and 
into  the  homes  of  the  poor.  Croker  abdicated  and 
went  away,  and  a  new  day  broke  for  our  harassed 
city. 

That,  in  brief,  is  the  story  of  the  campaign  that 
discharged  the  devil  as  paymaster,  and  put  his 
money  out  of  circulation  —  for  good,  let  us  all 
hope. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE    BLIGHT    OF   THE    DOUBLE-DECKER 

In  a  Stanton  Street  tenement,  the  other  day,  I 
stumbled  upon  a  Polish  capmaker's  home.  There 
were  other  capmakers  in  the  house,  Russian  and 
Polish,  but  they  simply  "  lived  "  there.  This  one 
had  a  home.  The  fact  proclaimed  itself  the  mo- 
ment the  door  was  opened,  in  spite  of  the  darkness. 
The  rooms  were  in  the  rear,  gloomy  with  the  twi- 
light of  the  tenement  although  the  day  was  sunny 
without,  but  neat,  even  cosey.  It  was  early,  but  the 
day's  chores  were  evidently  done.  The  tea-kettle 
sang  on  the  stove,  at  which  a  bright-looking  girl 
of  twelve,  with  a  pale  but  cheery  face,  and  sleeves 
brushed  back  to  the  elbows,  was  busy  poking  up 
the  fire.  A  little  boy  stood  by  the  window,  flatten- 
ing his  nose  against  the  pane,  and  gazed  wistfully 
up  among  the  chimney  pots  where  a  piece  of  blue 
sky  about  as  big  as  the  kitchen  could  be  made  out. 
I  remarked  to  the  mother  that  they  were  nice 
rooms. 

"  Ah  yes,"  she  said,  with  a  weary  little  smile  that 
struggled  bravely  with  hope  long  deferred,  "  but  it 

76 


With  his  whole  hungry  little  soul  in  his  eyes." 


THE   BLIGHT   OF  THE  DOUBLE-DECKER  79 

is  hard  to  make  a  home  here.  We  would  so  Hke 
to  live  in  the  front,  but  we  can't  pay  the  rent." 

I  knew  the  front  with  its  unlovely  view  of  the 
tenement  street  too  well,  and  I  said  a  good  word 
for  the  air-shaft  —  yard  or  court  it  could  not  be 
called,  it  was  too  small  for  that  —  which  rather  sur- 
prised myself.  I  had  found  few  virtues  enough  in 
it  before.  The  girl  at  the  stove  had  left  off  poking 
the  fire.  She  broke  in  the  moment  I  finished,  with 
eager  enthusiasm :  "  Why,  they  have  the  sun  in 
there.  When  the  door  is  opened  the  light  comes 
right  in  your  face."    " 

"  Does  it  never  come  here  ?  "  I  asked,  and  wished 
I  had  not  done  so,  as  soon  as  the  words  were 
spoken.  The  child  at  the  window  was  listening, 
with  his  whole  hungry  little  soul  in  his  eyes. 

Yes,  it  did,  she  said.  Once  every  summer,  for  a 
little  while,  it  came  over  the  houses.  She  knew 
the  month  and  the  exact  hour  of  the  day  when  its 
rays  shone  into  their  home,  and  just  the  reach  of 
its  slant  on  the  wall.  They  had  lived  there  six 
years.  In  June  the  sun  was  due.  A  haunting 
fear  that  the  baby  would  ask  how  long  it  was  till 
June  —  it  was  February  then  —  took  possession  of 
me,  and  I  hastened  to  change  the  subject.  War- 
saw was  their  old  home.  They  kept  a  little  store 
there,  and  were  young  and  happy.  Oh,  it  was  a 
fine  city,  with  parks  and  squares,  and  bridges  over 


8o  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

the  beautiful  river,  —  and  grass  and  flowers  and 
birds  and  soldiers,  put  in  the  girl  breathlessly.  She 
remembered.  But  the  children  kept  coming,  and 
they  went  across  the  sea  to  give  them  a  better 
chance.  Father  made  fifteen  dollars  a  week,  much 
money;  but  there  were  long  seasons  when  there 
was  no  work.  She,  the  mother,  was  never  very 
well  here, — she  hadn't  any  strength;  and  the  baby! 
She  glanced  at  his  grave  white  face,  and  took  him 
in  her  arms.  The  picture  of  the  two,  and  of  the 
pale-faced  girl  longing  back  to  the  fields  and  the 
sunlight,  in  their  prison  of  gloom  and  gray  walls, 
haunts  me  yet.  I  have  not  had  the  courage  to  go 
back  since.  I  recalled  the  report  of  an  English 
army  surgeon,  which  I  read  years  ago,  on  the  many 
more  soldiers  that  died  —  were  killed  would  be  more 
correct — in  barracks  into  which  the  sun  never  shone 
than  in  those  that  were  open  to  the  light.  They 
have  yet  two  months  to  the  sun  in  Stanton  Street. 
The  capmaker's  case  is  the  case  of  the  nineteenth 
century  of  civilization  against  the  metropolis  of 
America.  The  home,  the  family,  are  the  rallying 
points  of  civilization.  The  greatness  of  a  city  is  to 
be  measured,  not  by  its  balance  sheets  of  exports 
and  imports,  not  by  its  fleet  of  merchantmen,  or  by 
its  miles  of  paved  streets,  nor  even  by  its  colleges, 
its  art  museums,  its  schools  of  learning,  but  by  its 
homes.     New  York  has  all  these,  but  its  people  live 


THE   BLIGHT   OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  8 1 

in  tenements  where  '^  all  the  conditions  which  sur- 
round childhood,  youth,  and  womanhood  make  for 
unrighteousness."^  This  still,  after  forty  years  of 
battling,  during  which  we  have  gone  on  piling  layer 
upon  layer  of  human  beings  and  calling  that  home  ! 
The  15,309  tenements  the  Council  of  Hygiene  found 
in  1864  have  become  47,000,  and  their  population  of 
495,592  has  swelled  into  nearly  a  million  and  three- 
quarters.^  There  were  four  flights  of  stairs  at  most 
in  the  old  days.  Now  they  build  tenements  six  and 
seven  stories  high,  and  the  street  has  become  a  mere 
runway.  It  cannot  take  up  the  crowds  for  which 
it  was  never  meant.  Go  look  at  those  East  Side 
streets  on  a  summer  evening  or  on  any  fair  Sunday 
when,  at  all  events,  some  of  the  workers  are  at 
home,  and  see  what  they  are  like.  In  1880  the 
average  number  of  persons  to  each  dwelling  in  New 
York,  counting  them  all  in,  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
was  16.37  5  i^  1890  it  was  18.52  ;  in  1900,  according  to 
the  United  States  census,  the  average  in  the  old  city 
was  20.4.  It  all  means  that  there  are  so  many  more 
and  so  much  bigger  tenements,  and  four  families 
to  the  floor  where  there  were  two  before.     Statistics 

*  Report  of  Tenement  House  Commission,  1900. 

*  Tenement  house  census  of  1900:  Manhattan  and  the  Bronx  bor- 
oughs (the  old  city),  46,993  tenements,  with  a  population  of  1,701,643. 
The  United  States  census  of  the  two  boroughs  gave  them  a  population 
of  2,050,600.  In  the  Greater  New  York  there  are  82,000  tenements, 
and  two-thirds  of  our  nearly  four  millions  of  people  live  in  them. 


82         THE  BATTLE  WITH  THE  SLUM 

are  not  my  hobby.  I  like  to  get  their  human  story 
out  of  them.  Anybody  who  wants  them  can  get  the 
figures  in  the  census  books.  But  as  an  instance  of 
the  unchecked  drift  —  unchecked  as  yet  —  look  at 
this  record  of  the  Tenth  Ward,  the  "  most  crowded 
spot  in  the  world."  In  1880,  when  it  had  not  yet 
attained  to  that  bad  eminence,  it  contained  47,554 
persons,  or  432.3  to  the  acre.  In  1890  the  census 
showed  a  population  of  57,596,  which  was  522  to  the 
acre.  The  police  census  of  1895  found  70,168  per- 
sons living  in  15 14  houses,  which  was  643.08  to  the 
acre.  The  Health  Department's  census  for  the  first 
half  of  1898  gave  a  total  of  82,175  persons  living  in 
1 201  tenements,  with  313  inhabited  buildings  yet  to 
be  heard  from.  This  is  the  process  of  doubling  up, 
—  literally,  since  the  cause  and  the  vehicle  of  it  all 
is  the  double-decker  tenement,  —  which  in  the  year 
1900  had  crowded  a  single  block  in  that  ward  at  the 
rate  of  1724  persons  per  acre,  and  one  in  the  Elev- 
enth Ward  at  the  rate  of  1894.^  It  goes  on  not  in 
the  Tenth  Ward  or  on  the  East  Side  only,  but 
throughout  the  city.  When,  in  1897,  it  was  pro- 
posed to  lay  out  a  small  park  in  the  Twenty-second 
Ward,  up  on  the  far  West  Side,  it  was  shown  that 
five  blocks  in  that  section,  between  Forty-ninth  and 

^  Police  census  of  1900,  block  bounded  by  Canal,  Hester,  Eldridge, 
and  Forsyth  streets  :  size  375  x  200,  population  2969,  rate  per  acre 
1724.  Block  bounded  by  Stanton,  Houston,  Attorney,  and  Ridge 
streets  :  size  200  x  300,  population  2609,  rate  per  acre  1894. 


THE   BLIGHT   OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  83 

Sixty-second  streets  and  Ninth  and  Eleventh  ave- 
nues, had  a  population  of  more  than  3000  each.  The 
block  between  Sixty-first  and  Sixty-second  streets 
and  Tenth  and  Eleventh  avenues  harbored  4254 
when  the  police  made  a  count  in  1900,  which  meant 
1 158  persons  to  the  acre. 

These  are  the  facts.  The  question  is,  are  they 
beyond  our  control  ?  Let  us  look  at  them  squarely 
and  see.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  no  answer  to  the 
charge  that  New  York's  way  of  housing  its  workers 
is  the  worst  in  the  world  to  say  that  they  are  better 
off  than  they  were  where  they  came  from.  It  is  not 
true,  in  most  cases,  as  far  as  the  home  is  concerned ; 
a  shanty  is  better  than  a  flat  in  a  slum  tenement, 
any  day.  Even  if  it  were  true,  it  would  still  be  be- 
side the  issue.  In  Poland  my  capmaker  counted  for 
nothing.  Nothing  was  expected  of  him.  Here  he 
ranks,  after  a  few  brief  years,  politically  equal  with 
the  man  who  hires  his  labor.  A  citizen's  duty  is 
expected  of  him,  and  home  and  citizenship  are  con- 
vertible terms.  The  observation  of  the  Frenchman 
who  had  watched  the  experiment  of  herding  two 
thousand  human  beings  in  eight  tenement  barracks 
over  yonder,  that  the  result  was  the  "  exasperation 
of  the  tenant  against  society,"  is  true  the  world 
over.  We  have  done  as  badly  in  New  York.  Social 
hatefulness  is  not  a  good  soil  for  citizenship  to  grow 
in,  where  political  equality  rules. 


84  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

Nor  is  it  going  to  help  us  any  to  charge  it  all  to 
the  tenant  "  who  will  herd."  He  herds  because  he 
has  no  other  chance;  because  it  puts  money  into 
some  one's  pockets  to  let  him.  We  never  yet  have 
passed  a  law  for  his  relief  that  was  not  attacked 
in  the  same  or  the  next  legislature  in  the  interest 
of  the  tenement-house  builder.  Commission  after 
commission  has  pointed  out  that  the  tenants  are 
"  better  than  the  houses  they  live  in  " ;  that  they 
"  respond  quickly  to  improved  conditions."  Those 
are  not  honest  answers.  The  man  who  talks  that 
way  is  a  fool,  or  worse. 

The  truth  is  that  if  we  cannot  stop  the  crowds 
from  coming,  we  can  make  homes  for  those  who 
come,  and  at  a  profit  on  the  investment.  That  has 
been  proved,  is  being  proved  now  every  day.  It  is 
not  a  case  of  transforming  human  nature  in  the 
tenant,  but  of  reforming  it  in  the  landlord  builder. 
It  is  a  plain  question  of  the  per  cent  he  is  willing  to 
take. 

So  then,  we  have  got  it  on  the  moral  ground 
where  it  belongs.  Let  the  capmaker's  case  be  ever 
so  strong,  we  shall  yet  win.  We  shall  win  his  fight 
and  our  own  together ;  they  are  one.  This  is  the 
way  it  stands  at  the  outset  of  the  twentieth  century : 
New  York's  housing  is  still  the  worst  in  the  world. 
We  have  the  biggest  crowds.  We  have  been  kill- 
ing the  home  that  is  our  very  life  at  the  most  reck- 


THE   BLIGHT   OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  85 

less  rate.  But,  badly  as  we  are  off  and  shall  be  off 
for  years  to  come,  —  allowing  even  that  we  are  get- 
ting worse  off  in  the  matter  of  crowding,  —  we  know 
now  that  we  can  do  better.  We  have  done  it.  We 
are  every  year  wresting  more  light  and  air  from  the 
builder.  He  no  longer  dares  come  out  and  fight 
in  the  open,  for  he  knows  that  public  sentiment  is 
against  him.  The  people  understand  —  to  what  an 
extent  is  shown  in  a  report  of  a  Tenement  House 
Committee  in  the  city  of  Yonkers,  which  the  post- 
man put  on  my  table  this  minute.  The  committee 
was  organized  "  to  prevent  the  danger  to  Yonkers  of 
incurring  the  same  evils  that  have  fallen  so  heavily 
upon  New  York  and  have  cost  that  city  millions  of 
money  and  thousands  of  lives."  It  sprang  from  the 
Civic  League,  was  appointed  by  a  Republican  mayor 
and  indorsed  by  a  Democratic  council !  That  is  as  it 
should  be.     So,  we  shall  win. 

In  fact,  we  are  winning  now,  backed  by  this  very 
understanding.  The  double-decker  is  doomed,  and 
the  twenty-five-foot  lot  has  had  its  day.  We  are 
building  tenements  in  which  it  is  possible  to  rear 
homes.  We  are  at  last  in  a  fair  way  to  make  the 
slum  unprofitable,  and  that  is  the  only  way  to  make 
it  go.  So  that  we  may  speed  it  the  more  let  us  go 
with  the  capmaker  a  while  and  get  his  point  of  view. 
After  all,  that  is  the  one  that  counts;  the  com- 
munity is  not  nearly  as   much   interested   in  the 


86  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

profits  of  the  landlord  as  in  the  welfare  of  the 
workers. 

That  we  may  get  it  fairly,  suppose  we  take  a 
stroll  through  a  tenement-house  neighborhood  and 
see  for  ourselves.  We  were  in  Stanton  Street.  Let 
us  start  there,  then,  going  east.  Towering  barracks 
on  either  side,  five,  six  stories  high.  Teeming 
crowds.  Push-cart  men  "  moved  on  "  by  the  police- 
man, who  seems  to  exist  only  for  the  purpose.  For- 
syth Street :  there  is  a  church  on  the  corner,  Polish 
and  Catholic,  a  combination  that  strikes  one  as  queer 
here  on  the  East  Side,  where  Polish  has  come  to  be 
synonymous  with  Jewish.  I  have  cause  to  remem- 
ber that  corner.  A  man  killed  his  wife  in  this  house, 
and  was  hanged  for  it.  Just  across  the  street,  on  the 
stoop  of  that  brown-stone  tenement,  the  tragedy  was 
reenacted  the  next  year;  only  the  murderer  saved 
the  county  trouble  and  expense  by  taking  himself 
off  also.  That  other  stoop  in  the  same  row  wit- 
nessed a  suicide. 

Why  do  I  tell  you  these  things  ?  Because  they 
are  true.  The  policeman  here  will  bear  me  out. 
They  belong  to  the  ordinary  setting  of  life  in  a 
crowd  such  as  this.  It  is  never  so  little  worth  liv- 
ing, and  therefore  held  so  cheap  along  with  the 
fierce,  unceasing  battle  that  goes  on  to  save  it. 
You  will  go  no  further  unless  I  leave  it  out  ?  Very 
well;  I  shall  leave  out  the  murder  after  we  have 


THE  BLIGHT   OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  8/ 

passed  the  block  yonder.  The  tragedy  of  that  is 
of  a  kind  that  comes  too  close  to  the  everyday  life 
of  tenement-house  people  to  be  omitted.  The 
house  caught  fire  in  the  night,  and  five  were  burned 
to  death, — father,  mother,  and  three  children.  The 
others  got  out;  why  not  they?  They  stayed,  it 
seems,  to  make  sure  none  was  left ;  they  were  not 
willing  to  leave  one  behind,  to  save  themselves. 
And  then  it  was  too  late ;  the  stairs  were  burning. 
There  was  no  proper  fire  escape.  That  was  where 
the  murder  came  in ;  but  it  was  not  all  chargeable 
to  the  landlord,  nor  even  the  greater  part.  More 
than  thirty  years  ago,  in  1867,  the  state  made  it  law 
that  the  stairs  in  every  tenement  four  stories  high 
should  be  fireproof,  and  forbade  the  storing  of  any 
inflammable  material  in  such  houses.  I  do  not 
know  when  the  law  was  repealed,  or  if  it  ever  was. 
I  only  know  that  in  1892  the  Fire  Department,  out 
of  pity  for  the  tenants  and  regard  for  the  safety  of 
its  own  men,  forced  through  an  amendment  to  the 
building  law,  requiring  the  stairs  of  the  common 
type  of  five-story  tenements  to  be  built  of  fireproof 
material,  and  that  they  are  still  of  wood,  just  as 
they  always  were.  Ninety-seven  per  cent  of  the 
tenements  examined  by  the  late  Tenement  House 
Commission  (1900)  in  Manhattan  had  stairs  of 
wood.  In  Brooklyn  they  were  all  oi  wood.  Once, 
a  couple  of  years  ago,  I  looked  up  the  Superinten- 


88  THE    BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

dent  of  Buildings  and  asked  him  what  it  meant. 
I  showed  him  the  law,  which  said  that  the  stairs 
should  be  "built  of  slow-burning  construction  or 
fireproof  material " ;  and  he  put  his  finger  upon 
the  clause  that  follows,  "as  the  Superintendent  of 
Buildings  shall  decide."  The  law  gave  him  discre- 
tion, and  that  is  how  he  used  it.  "  Hard  wood 
burns  slowly,"  said  he. 

The  fire  of  which  I  speak  was  a  "  cruller  fire," 
if  I  remember  rightly,  which  is  to  say  that  it  broke 
out  in  the  basement  bakeshop,  where  they  were 
boiling  crullers  (doughnuts)  in  fat,  at  4  a.m., 
with  a  hundred  tenants  asleep  in  the  house 
above  them.  The  fat  went  into  the  fire,  and  the 
rest  followed.  I  suppose  that  I  had  to  do  with  a 
hundred  such  fires,  as  a  police  reporter,  before, 
under  the  protest  of  the  Gilder  Tenement  House 
Commission  and  the  Good  Government  Clubs,  the 
boiling  of  fat  in  tenement  bakeshops  was  forbidden. 
The  Chief  of  the  Fire  Department,  in  his  testimony 
before  the  commission,  said  that  "  tenements  are 
erected  mainly  with  a  view  of  returning  a  large 
income  for  the  amount  of  capital  invested.  It  is 
only  after  a  fire  in  which  great  loss  of  life  occurs 
that  any  interest  whatever  is  taken  in  the  safety  of 
the  occupants."  The  Superintendent  of  Buildings, 
after  such  a  fire  in  March,  1896,  said  that  there 
were  thousands  of   tenement  firetraps  in  the   city. 


THE   BUGHT  OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  89 

My  reporter's  notebook  bears  witness  to  the  correct- 
ness of  his  statement,  and  it  has  many  blank  leaves 
that  are  waiting  to  be  put  to  that  use  yet.  The 
reckoning  for  eleven  years  showed  that,  of  35,844 
fires  in  New  York,  53.18  per  cent  were  in  tenement 
houses,  though  they  were  only  a  little  more  than 
31  per  cent  of  all  the  buildings,  and  that  177  occu- 
pants were  killed,  523  maimed,  and  625  rescued  by 
the  firemen.  Their  rescue  cost  the  lives  of  three  of 
these  brave  men,  and  453  were  injured  in  the  effort. 
And  when  all  that  is  said,  not  the  half  is  told.  A 
fire  in  the  night  in  one  of  those  human  beehives, 
with  its  terror  and  woe,  is  one  of  the  things  that 
live  in  the  recollection  ever  after  as  a  terrible  night- 
mare. The  fire-chief  thought  that  every  tenement 
house  should  be  fireproof,  but  he  warned  the  com- 
mission that  such  a  proposition  would  "  meet  with 
strong  opposition  from  the  different  interests, 
should  legislation  be  requested."  He  was  right. 
It  is  purely  a  question  of  the  builder's  profits.  Up 
to  date  we  have  rescued  the  first  floor  from  him. 
That  must  be  fireproof.  We  shall  get  the  whole 
structure  yet  if  we  pull  long  enough  and  hard 
enough,  as  we  will. 

Here  is  a  block  of  tenements  inhabited  by  poor 
Jews.  Most  of  the  Jews  who  live  over  here  are 
poor ;  and  the  poorer  they  are,  the  higher  rent  do 
they  pay,  and  the  more  do  they  crowd  to  make  it 


90  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

up  between  them.  "  The  destruction  of  the  poor  is 
their  poverty."  It  is  only  the  old  story  in  a  new 
setting.  The  slum  landlord's  profits  were  always 
the  highest.  He  spends  nothing  for  repairs,  and  lays 
the  blame  on  the  tenant.  The  "  district  leader " 
saves  him,  when  Tammany  is  at  the  helm,  unless 
he  is  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  political  fence,  in 
which  case  the  Sanitary  Code  comes  handy,  to 
chase  him  into  camp.  A  big  "  order  "  on  his  house 
is  a  very  effective  way  of  making  a  tenement-house 
landlord  discern  political  truth  on  the  eve  of  an 
important  election.  Just  before  the  election  which 
put  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  the  Governor's  chair  at 
Albany  the  sanitary  force  displayed  such  activity  as 
had  never  been  known  till  then  in  the  examination 
of  tenements  belonging  very  largely,  as  it  happened, 
to  sympathizers  with  the  gallant  Rough  Rider's 
cause;  and  those  who  knew  did  not  marvel  much 
at  the  large  vote  polled  by  the  Tammany  candidate 
in  the  old  city. 

The  halls  of  these  tenements  are  dark.  Under 
the  law  there  should  be  a  light  burning,  but  it  is 
one  of  the  rarest  things  to  find  one.  The  thing 
seems  well-nigh  impossible  of  accomplishment. 
When  the  Good  Government  Clubs  set  about  back- 
ing up  the  Board  of  Health  in  its  efforts  to  work 
out  this  reform,  which  comes  close  to  being  one  of 
the  most   necessary  of  all,  —  such  untold  mischief 


THE   BLIGHT  OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  91 

is  abroad  in  the  darkness  of  these  thoroughfares,  — 
the  sanitary  police  reported  12,000  tenement  halls 
unlighted  by  night,  even,  and  brought  them,  by 
repeated  orders,  down  to  less  than  1000  in  six 
months.  I  doubt  that  the  light  burned  in  1000  of 
them  all  a  month  after  the  election  that  brought 
Tammany  back.  It  is  so  easy  to  put  it  out  when 
the  policeman's  back  is  turned.  Gas  costs  money. 
Let  what  doesn't  take  care  of  itself. 

We  had  a  curious  instance,  at  the  time,  of  the 
diflficulties  that  sometimes  beset  reform.  Certain 
halls  that  were  known  to  be  dark  were  reported 
sufficiently  lighted  by  the  policeman  of  the  district, 
and  it  was  discovered  that  it  was  his  standard  that 
was  vitiated.  He  himself  lived  in  a  tenement,  and 
was  used  to  its  gloom.  So  an  order  was  issued 
defining  darkness  to  the  sanitary  police :  if  the  sink 
in  the  hall  could  be  made  out,  and  the  slops  over- 
flowing on  the  floor,  and  if  a  baby  could  be  seen 
on  the  stairs,  the  hall  was  light;  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  baby's  shrieks  were  the  first  warning  that 
it  was  being  trampled  upon,  the  hall  was  dark. 
Some  days  later  the  old  question  arose  about  an 
Eldridge  Street  tenement.  The  policeman  had 
reported  the  hall  light  enough.  The  President  of 
the  Board  of  Health,  to  settle  it  once  for  all,  went 
over  with  me,  to  see  for  himself.  The  hall  was 
very  dark.     He  sent  for  the  policeman. 


92  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

"  Did  you  see  the  sink  in  that  hall  ?  "  he  asked. 

The  policeman  said  he  did. 

"  But  it  is  pitch  dark.     How  did  you  see  it  ?  " 

"  I  lit  a  match,"  said  the  policeman. 

Four  families  live  on  these  floors,  with  heaven 
knows  how  many  children.  It  was  here  the  police 
commissioners  were  requested,  in  sober  earnest, 
some  years  ago,  by  a  committee  of  very  practical 
woman  philanthropists,  to  have  the  children  tagged, 
as  they  do  in  Japan,  I  am  told,  so  as  to  save  the 
policeman  wear  and  tear  in  taking  them  back  and 
forth  between  the  Eldridge  Street  police  station 
and  headquarters,  when  they  got  lost.  If  tagged, 
they  could  be  assorted  at  once  and  taken  to  their 
homes.  Incidentally,  the  city  would  save  the  ex- 
pense of  many  meals.  It  was  shrewdly  suspected 
that  the  little  ones  were  lost  on  purpose  in  a  good 
many  cases,  as  a  way  of  getting  them  fed  at  the 
public  expense. 

That  the  children  preferred  the  excitement  of  the 
police  station,  and  the  distinction  of  a  trip  in  charge 
of  a  brass-buttoned  guardian,  to  the  Ludlow  Street 
flat  is  easy  enough  to  understand.  A  more  un- 
lovely existence  than  that  in  one  of  these  tenements 
it  would  be  hard  to  imagine.  Everywhere  is  the 
stench  of  the  kerosene  stove  that  is  forever  burn- 
ing, serving  for  cooking,  heating,  and  ironing  alike, 
until  the  last  atom  of  oxygen  is  burned  out  of  the 


THE   BLIGHT  OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  93 

close  air.  Oil  is  cheaper  than  coal.  The  air  shaft 
is  too  busy  carrying  up  smells  from  below  to  bring 
any  air  down,  even  if  it  is  not  hung  full  of  washing 
in    every   story,  as    it    ordinarily  is.     Enterprising 


One  Family's  Outlook  on  the  Air  Shaft.     The  Mother  said,   "  Our 
Daughter  does  not  care  to  come  Home  to  Sleep." 

tenants  turn  it  to  use  as  a  refrigerator  as  well. 
There  is  at  least  a  draught  of  air,  such  as  it  is. 
When  fire  breaks  out,  this  draught  makes  of  the 
air  shaft  a  flue  through  which  the  fire  roars  fiercely 
to  the  roof,  so  transforming  what  was  meant  for  the 
good  of  the  tenants  into  their  greatest  peril.     The 


94  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

stuffy  rooms  bring  to  mind  this  denunciation  of 
the  tenement  builder  of  fifty  years  ago  by  an  angry 
writer,  "  He  measures  the  height  of  his  ceilings 
by  the  shortest  of  the  people,  and  by  thin  partitions 
divides  the  interior  into  as  narrow  spaces  as  the 
leanest  carpenter  can  work  in."  Most  decidedly, 
there  is  not  room  to  swing  the  proverbial  cat  in  any 
one  of  them.  In  one  I  helped  the  children,  last 
holiday,  to  set  up  a  Christmas  tree,  so  that  a 
glimpse  of  something  that  was  not  utterly  sordid 
and  mean  might  for  once  enter  their  lives.  Three 
weeks  after,  I  found  the  tree  standing  yet  in  the 
corner.  It  was  very  cold,  and  there  was  no  fire 
in  the  room.  "  We  were  going  to  burn  it,"  said  the 
little  woman,  whose  husband  was  then  in  the  insane 
asylum,  "and  then  I  couldn't.  It  looked  so  kind 
o'  cheery-like  there  in  the  corner."  My  tree  had 
borne  the  fruit   I  wished. 

It  remained  for  the  New  York  slum  landlord  to 
assess  the  exact  value  of  a  ray  of  sunlight,  —  upon 
the  tenant,  of  course.  Here  are  two  back-to-back 
rear  tenements,  with  dark  bedrooms  on  the  south. 
The  flat  on  the  north  gives  upon  a  neighbor's  yard, 
and  a  hole  two  feet  square  has  been  knocked  in 
the  wall,  letting  in  air  and  sunlight ;  little  enough 
of  the  latter,  but  what  there  is  is  carefully  computed 
in  the  lease.  Six  dollars  for  this  flat,  six  and  a  half 
for  the  one  with  the  hole  in  the  wall.     Six  dollars 


THE   BLIGHT  OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  95 

a  year  per  ray.  In  half  a  dozen  houses  in  this 
block  have  I  found  the  same  rate  maintained.  The 
modern  tenement  on  the  corner  goes  higher:  for 
four  front  rooms,  "where  the  sun  comes  right  in 
your  face,"  seventeen  dollars;  for  the  rear  flat  of 
three  rooms,  larger  and  better  every  other  way,  but 
always  dark,  like  the  capmaker's, .  eleven  dollars. 
From  the  landlord's  point  of  view,  this  last  is  prob- 
ably a  concession.  But  he  is  a  landlord  with  a 
heart.  His  house  is  as  good  a  one  as  can  be  built 
on  a  twenty-five-foot  lot.  The  man  who  owns  the 
corner  building  in  Orchard  Street,  with  the  two 
adjoining  tenements,  has  no  heart.  In  the  depth  of 
last  winter  I  found  a  family  of  poor  Jews  living 
in  a  coop  under  his  stairs,  an  abandoned  piece  of 
hallway,  in  which  their  baby  was  born,  and  for 
which  he  made  them  pay  eight  dollars  a  month. 
It  was  the  most  outrageous  case  of  landlord  robbery 
I  had  ever  come  across,  and  it  gave  me  sincere 
pleasure  to  assist  the  sanitary  policeman  in  curtail- 
ing his  profits  by  even  this  much.  The  hall  is  not 
now  occupied. 

The  Jews  under  the  stairs  had  two  children. 
The  shoemaker  in  the  cellar  next  door  had  three. 
They  were  fighting  and  snarling  like  so  many  dogs 
over  the  coarse  food  on  the  table  before  them,  when 
we  looked  in.  The  baby,  it  seems,  was  the  cause 
of  the  row.     He  wanted   it  all.     He  was  a   very 


96  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

dirty  and  a  very  fierce  baby,  and  the  other  two 
children  were  no  match  for  him.  The  shoemaker 
grunted  fretfully  at  his  last,  "  Ach,  he  is  all  de  time 
hungry ! "  At  the  sight  of  the  policeman,  the 
young  imp  set  up  such  a  howl  that  we  beat  a  hasty 
retreat.  The  cellar  "  flat  "  was  undoubtedly  in  vio- 
lation of  law,  but  it  was  allowed  to  pass.  In  the 
main  hall,  on  the  ground  floor,  we  counted  seven- 
teen children.  The  facts  of  life  here  suspend 
ordinary  landlord  prejudices  to  a  certain  extent. 
Occasionally  it  is  the  tenant  who  suspends  them. 
The  policeman  laughed  as  he  told  me  of  the  case 
of  a  mother  who  coveted  a  flat  into  which  she  well 
knew  her  family  would  not  be  admitted ;  the  land- 
lord was  particular.  She  knocked,  with  a  troubled 
face,  alone.  Yes,  the  flat  was  to  let ;  had  she  any 
children  }  The  woman  heaved  a  sigh.  "  Six,  but 
they  are  all  in  Greenwood."  The  landlord's  heart 
was  touched  by  such  woe.  He  let  her  have  the 
flat.  By  night  he  was  amazed  to  find  a  flock  of 
half  a  dozen  robust  youngsters  domiciled  under 
his  roof.  They  had  indeed  been  in  Greenwood ; 
but  they  had  come  back  from  the  cemetery  to  stay. 
And  stay  they  did,  the  rent  being  paid. 

High  rents,  slack  work,  and  low  wages  go  hand 
in  hand  in  the  tenements  as  promoters  of  over- 
crowding. The  rent  is  always  one-fourth  of  the 
family  income,  often  more.     The  fierce  competition 


THE   BLIGHT  OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  97 

for  a  bare  living  cuts  down  wages;  and  when  loss 
of  work  is  added,  the  only  thing  left  is  to  take  in 
lodgers  to  meet  the  landlord's  claim.  The  Jew 
usually  takes  them  singly,  the  Italian  by  families. 
The  midnight  visit  of  the  sanitary  policeman  dis- 
closes a  state  of  affairs  against  which  he  feels  him- 
self helpless.  He  has  his  standard :  400  cubic  feet 
of  air  space  for  each  adult  sleeper,  200  for  a  child. 
That  in  itself  is  a  concession  to  the  practical  neces- 
sities of  the  case.  The  original  demand  was  for 
600  feet.  But  of  28,000  and  odd  tenants  canvassed 
in  New  York,  in  the  slumming  investigation  prose- 
cuted by  the  general  government  in  1894,  17,047 
were  found  to  have  less  than  400  feet,  and  of  these 
5526  slept  in  unventilated  rooms  with  no  windows. 
No  more  such  rooms  have  been  added  since;  but 
there  has  come  that  which  is  worse. 

It  was  the  boast  of  New  York,  till  a  few  years 
ago,  that  at  least  that  worst  of  tenement  depravities, 
the  one-room  house,  too  familiar  in  the  English 
slums,  was  practically  unknown  here.  It  is  not  so 
any  longer.  The  evil  began  in  the  old  houses  in 
Orchard  and  Allen  streets,  a  bad  neighborhood,  in- 
fested by  fallen  women  and  the  thievish  rascals  who 
prey  upon  their  misery,  —  a  region  where  the  whole 
plan  of  humanity,  if  plan  there  be  in  this  disgusting 
mess,  jars  out  of  tune  continually.  The  furnished- 
room  house  has  become  an  institution  here,  speeded 


98  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

on  by  a  conscienceless  Jew  who  bought  up  the  old 
buildings  as  fast  as  they  came  into  the  market,  and 
filled  them  with  a  class  of  tenants  before  whom 
charity  recoils,  helpless  and  hopeless.  When  the 
houses  were  filled,  the  crowds  overflowed  into  the 
yard.  In  one,  I  found,  in  midwinter,  tenants  living 
in  sheds  built  of  odd  boards  and  roof  tin,  and 
paying  a  dollar  a  week  for  herding  with  the  rats. 
One  of  them,  a  red-faced  German,  was  a  philosopher 
after  his  kind.  He  did  not  trouble  himself  to  get 
up,  when  I  looked  in,  but  stretched  himself  in  his 
bed,  —  it  was  high  noon,  —  responding  to  my  sniff 
of  disgust  that  it  was  "  sehr  schoen !  ein  bischen 
kalt,  aber  was  !  "  His  neighbor,  a  white-haired  old 
woman,  begged,  trembling,  not  to  be  put  out.  She 
would  not  know  where  to  go.  It  was  out  of  one  of 
these  houses  that  Fritz  Meyer,  the  murderer,  went 
to  rob  the  poor  box  in  the  Redemptorist  Church,  the 
night  when  he  killed  policeman  Smith.  The  police- 
man surprised  him  at  his  work.  In  the  room  he 
had  occupied  I  came  upon  a  brazen-looking  woman 
with  a  black  eye,  who  answered  the  question  of  the 
officer,  "  Where  did  you  get  that  shiner .? "  with  a 
laugh.  "  I  ran  up  against  the  fist  of  me  man,"  she 
said.  Her  "  man,"  a  big,  sullen  lout,  sat  by,  dumb. 
The  woman  answered  for  him  that  he  was  a 
mechanic. 

"  What  does  he  work  at  ? "  snorted  the  policeman, 


THE   BLIGHT   OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  99 

restraining  himself  with  an  effort  from  kicking  the 
fellow. 

She  laughed  scornfully,  "  At  the  junk  business." 
It  meant  that  he  was  a  thief. 

Young  men,  with  blotched  faces  and  cadaverous 
looks,  were  loafing  in  every  room.  They  hung  their 
heads  in  silence.  The  women  turned  their  faces 
away  at  the  sight  of  the  uniform.  They  cling  to 
these  wretches,  who  exploit  their  starved  affections 
for  their  own  ease,  with  a  grip  of  desperation.  It  is 
their  last  hold.  Women  have  to  love  something. 
It  is  their  deepest  degradation  that  they  must  love 
these.  Even  tTie  wretches  themselves  feel  the 
shame  of  it,  and  repay  them  by  beating  and  robbing 
them,  as  their  daily  occupation.  A  poor  little  baby 
in  one  of  the  rooms  gave  a  shuddering  human  touch 
to  it  all. 

The  old  houses  began  it,  as  they  began  all  the 
tenement  mischief  that  has  come  upon  New  York. 
But  the  opportunity  that  was  made  by  the  tenant's 
need  was  not  one  to  be  neglected.  In  some  of  the 
newer  tenements,  with  their  smaller  rooms,  the 
lodger  is  by  this  time  provided  for  in  the  plan,  with 
a  special  entrance  from  the  hall.  "  Lodger  "  comes, 
by  an  easy  transition,  to  stand  for  "family."  One 
winter's  night  I  went  with  the  sanitary  police  on  their 
midnight  inspection  through  a  row  of  Elizabeth 
Street    tenements    which   I  had  known   since  they 


lOO  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

were  built,  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  ago.  That 
is  the  neighborhood  in  which  the  recent  Italian  im- 
migrants crowd.  In  the  house  which  we  selected 
for  examination,  in  all  respects  the  type  of  the  rest, 
we  found  forty-three  families  where  there  should 
have  been  sixteen.  Upon  each  floor  were  four  flats, 
and  in  each  flat  three  rooms  that  measured  respect- 
ively 14x11,  7x11,  and  7  X  8|  feet.  In  only  one 
flat  did  we  find  a  single  family.  In  three  there  were 
two  to  each.  In  the  other  twelve  each  room  had  its 
own  family  living  and  sleeping  there.  They  cooked, 
I  suppose,  at  the  one  stove  in  the  kitchen,  which 
was  the  largest  room.  In  one  big  bed  we  counted 
six  persons,  the  parents  and  four  children.  Two  of 
them  lay  crosswise  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  or  there 
would  not  have  been  room.  A  curtain  was  hung 
before  the  bed  in  each  of  the  two  smaller  rooms, 
leaving  a  passageway  from  the  hall  to  the  room  with 
the  windows.  The  rent  for  the  front  flats  was  twelve 
dollars ;  for  that  in  the  rear  ten  dollars.  The  social 
distinctions  going  with  the  advantage  of  location 
were  rigidly  observed,  I  suppose.  The  three  steps 
across  a  tenement  hall,  from  the  front  to  "  the  back," 
are  often  a  longer  road  than  from  Ludlow  Street  to 
Fifth  Avenue. 

They  were  sweaters'  tenements.  But  I  shall  keep 
that  end  of  the  story  until  I  come  to  speak  of  the 
tenants.     The  houses  I  have  in  mind  now.     They 


THE   BLIGHT   OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  lOI 

were  Astor  leasehold  property,  and  I  had  seen  them 
built  upon  the  improved  plan  of  1879,  with  air  shafts 
and  all  that.  There  had  not  been  water  in  the  tene- 
ments for  a  month  then,  we  were  told  by  the  one 
tenant  who  spoke  English  that  could  be  understood. 
The  cold  snap  had  locked  the  pipes.  Fitly  enough, 
the  lessee  was  an  undertaker,  an  Italian  himself,  who 
combined  with  his  business  of  housing  his  people 
above  and  below  the  ground  also  that  of  the  padrone, 
to  let  no  profit  slip.  He  had  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  make  many  or  recent  repairs.  The  buildings  had 
made  a  fair  start ;  they  promised  well.  But  the 
promise  had  not  been  kept.  In  their  premature  de- 
cay they  were  distinctly  as  bad  as  the  worst.  I  had 
the  curiosity  to  seek  out  the  agent,  the  middleman, 
and  ask  him  why  they  were  so.  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  With  such  tenants  nothing  could  be 
done,  he  said.  I  have  always  held  that  Italians  are 
most  manageable,  and  that,  with  all  the  surface  in- 
dications to  the  contrary,  they  are  really  inclined  to 
cleanliness,  if  cause  can  be  shown,  and  I  told  him  so. 
He  changed  the  subject  diplomatically.  No  doubt  it 
was  with  him  simply  a  question  of  the  rent.  They 
might  crowd  and  carry  on  as  they  pleased,  once  that 
was  paid ;  and  they  did.  It  used  to  be  the  joke  of 
Elizabeth  Street  that  when  the  midnight  police  came, 
the  tenants  would  keep  them  waiting  outside,  pre- 
tending to  search  for  the  key,  until  the  surplus  popu- 


102  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

lation  of  men  had  time  to  climb  down  the  fire-escape. 
When  the  police  were  gone  they  came  back.  We 
surprised  them  all  in  bed. 

Like  most  of  the  other  tenements  we  have  come 
across  on  our  trip,  these  were  double-deckers.  That 
is  the  type  of  tenement  that  is  responsible  for  the 
crowding  that  till  now  has  gone  on  unchecked. 
For  twenty  years  it  has  been  replacing  the  older 
barracks  everywhere,  as  fast  as  they  rotted  or  were 
torn  down. 

This  double-decker  was  thus  described  by  the 
Tenement  House  Commission  of  1894:  "It  is  the 
one  hopeless  form  of  tenement  construction.  It 
cannot  be  well  ventilated,  it  cannot  be  well  lighted ; 
it  is  not  safe  in  case  of  fire.  It  is  built  on  a  lot 
25  feet  wide  by  100  or  less  in  depth,  with  apartments 
for  four  families  in  each  story.  This  necessitates 
the  occupation  of  from  86  to  90  per  cent  of  the  lot's 
depth.  The  stairway,  made  in  the  centre  of  the 
house,  and  the  necessary  walls  and  partitions  reduce 
the  width  of  the  middle  rooms  (which  serve  as 
bedrooms  for  at  least  two  people  each)  to  9  feet 
each  at  the  most,  and  a  narrow  light  and  air  shaft, 
now  legally  required  in  the  centre  of  each  side 
wall,  still  further  lessens  the  floor  space  of  these 
middle  rooms.  Direct  light  is  only  possible  for 
the  rooms  at  the  front  and  rear.  The  middle  rooms 
must  borrow  what  light  they  can   from  dark  hall- 


THE   BLIGHT   OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER 


103 


ways,  the  shallow  shafts,  and  the  rear  rooms. 
Their  air  must  pass  through  other  rooms  or  the 
tiny  shafts,  and  cannot  but  be  contaminated  before 
it  reaches  them.  A  five-story  house  of  this  char- 
acter contains  apartments  for  eighteen  or  twenty 
families,  a  popu- 
lation frequently 
amounting  to  100 
people,  and  some- 
times increased  by 
boarders  or  lodg- 
ers to  150  or 
more." 

The  commis- 
sion, after  looking 
in  vain  through 
the  slums  of  the 
Old  World  cities 
for  something  to 
compare  the 
double  -  deckers 
with,  declared  that, 
in  their  setting,  the  separateness  and  sacredness  of 
home  life  were  interfered  with,  and  evils  bred, 
physical  and  moral,  that  "conduce  to  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  young."  "  Make  for  unrighteousness  " 
said  the  commission  of  1900,  six  years  later. 

Yet  it  is  for  these  that  the  "  interests  "  of  which 


The  only  Bath-tub  in  the  Block :   it  hangs  in 
the  Air  Shaft. 


I04  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

the  fire-chief  spoke  have  rushed  into  battle  at 
almost  every  session  of  the  legislature,  whenever  a 
step  was  taken  to  arraign  them  before  the  bar  of 
public  opinion.  No  winter  has  passed,  since  the 
awakening  conscience  of  the  people  of  New  York 
Qty  manifested  itself  in  a  desire  to  better  the  lot 
of  the  other  half,  that  has  not  seen  an  assault 
made,  in  one  shape  or  another,  on  the  structure  of 
tenement-house  law  built  up  with  such  anxious 
solicitude.  Once  a  bill  to  exempt  from  police 
supervision,  by  withdrawing  them  from  the  tene- 
■ment-house  class,  the  very  worst  of  the  houses, 
whose  death-rate  threatened  the  community,  was 
sneaked  through  the  legislature  all  unknown,  and 
had  reached  the  executive  before  the  alarm  was 
sounded.  The  Governor,  put  upon  his  guard,  re- 
turned the  bill,  with  the  indorsement  that  he  was 
unable  to  understand  what  could  have  prompted 
a  measure  that  seemed  to  have  reason  and  every 
argument  against  it  and  none  for  it. 

But  the  motive  is  not  so  obscure,  after  all.  It  is 
the  same  old  one  of  profit  without  conscience.  It 
took  from  the  Health  Department  the  supervision 
of  the  light,  ventilation,  and  plumbing  of  the  tene- 
ments, which  by  right  belonged  there,  and  put  it  in 
charge  of  a  compliant  Building  Department,  "for 
the  convenience  of  architects  and  their  clients,  and 
the  saving  of  time  and  expense  to  them."     For  the 


THE   BLIGHT   OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  105 

convenience  of  the  architect's  client,  the  builder 
the  lot  was  encroached  upon,  until  of  one  big  block 
which  the  Gilder  Commission  measured  only  7  per 
cent  was  left  open  to  the  air ;  93  per  cent  of  it  was 
covered  with  brick  and  mortar.  Rear  tenements, 
to  the  number  of  nearly  100,  have  been  condemned 
as  "slaughter-houses,"  with  good  reason,  but  this 
block  was  built  practically  solid.  The  average  of 
space  covered  in  34  tenement  blocks  was  shown  to 
be  78.13  per  cent.  The  law  allowed  only  65.  The 
"  discretion  "  that  penned  tenants  in  a  burning  tene- 
ment with  stairs  of  wood  for  the  builder's  "  conven- 
ience "  cut  down  the  chance  of  life  of  their  babies 
unmoved.  Sunlight  and  air  mean  just  that,  where 
three  thousand  human  beings  are  packed  into  a 
single  block.  That  was  why  the  matter  was  given 
into  the  charge  of  the  health  officials,  when  politics 
was  yet  kept  out  of  their  work. 

Of  such  kind  are  the  interests  that  oppose  better- 
ment of  the  worker's  hard  lot  in  New  York,  that 
dictated  the  appointment  by  Tammany  of  a  com- 
mission composed  of  builders  to  revise  its  code  of 
tenement  laws,  and  that  sneered  at  the  "  laughable 
results  of  the  Gilder  Tenement  House  Commission." 
Those  results  made  for  the  health  and  happiness 
and  safety  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  souls,  and  were 
accounted,  on  every  humane  ground,  the  longest 
step  forward   that   had   been   taken   by  this  com- 


io6 


THE    BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


,    JBJ 

HBI>,'.-ii;;fh."- 

..i-£.num^  i- 

w?vijjii'    »i  Jh  k^^^^^^^HHHHHH^I^H 

1  he  Old  Style  of  Tenements,  with  Yards. 

munity.  For  the  old  absentee  landlord,  who  did 
not  know  what  mischief  was  afoot,  we  have  got 
the  speculative  builder,  who  does  know,  but  does 
not  care,  so  long  as  he  gets  his  pound  of  flesh. 
Half   of   the   just  laws  that  have  been  passed  for 


As  a  Solid  Block  of  Double-deckers,  Lawful  until  now,  would  appear. 


THE   BLIGHT   OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  107 

the  relief  of  the  people  he  has  paralyzed  with  his 
treacherous  discretion  clause,  carefully  nursed  in 
the  school  of  practical  politics  to  which  he  gives 
faithful  adherence.  The  thing  has  been  the  curse 
of  our  city  from  the  day  when  the  earliest  struggle 
toward  better  things  began.  Among  the  first  man- 
ifestations of  that  was  the  prohibition  of  soap 
factories  below  Grand  Street  by  the  Act  of  1797, 
which  created  a  Board  of  Health  with  police 
powers.  The  act  was  passed  in  February,  to  take 
effect  in  July ;  but  long  before  that  time  the  same 
legislature  had  amended  it  by  giving  the  authorities 
discretion  in  the  matter.  And  the  biggest  soap 
factory  of  them  all  is  down  there  to  this  day,  and 
is  even  now  stirring  up  a  rumpus  among  the  latest 
immigrants,  the  Syrians,  who  have  settled  about  it. 
No  doubt  it  is  all  a  question  of  political  education ; 
but  is  not  a  hundred  years  enough  to  settle  this 
much,  that  compromise  is  out  of  place  where  the 
lives  of  the  people  are  at  stake,  and  that  it  is  time 
our  years  of  "  discretion  "  were  numbered } 

At  last  there  comes  for  the  answer  an  emphatic 
yes.  This  year  the  law  has  killed  the  discretionary 
clause  and  spoken  out  plainly.  No  more  stairs  of 
wood ;  no  more  encroachment  on  the  tenants'  sun- 
light; and  here,  set  in  its  frame  of  swarming  tene- 
ments, is  a  wide,  open  space,  yet  to  be  a  real  park, 
with  flowers  and  grass  and  birds   to   gladden  the 


I08  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

hearts  of  those  to  whom  such  things  have  been  as 
tales  that  are  told,  all  these  dreary  years,  and  with 
a  playground  in  which  the  children  of  yonder  big 
school  may  roam  at  will,  undismayed  by  landlord 
or  policeman.  Not  all  the  forces  of  reaction  can 
put  back  the  barracks  that  were  torn  down  as  one 
of  the  "  laughable  results  "  of  that  very  Tenement 
House  Commission's  work,  or  restore  to  the  under- 
taker his  profits  from  Bone  Alley  of  horrid  memory. 
It  was  the  tenant's  turn  to  laugh,  that  time.  Half 
a  dozen  blocks  away,  among  even  denser  swarms,  is 
another  such  plot,  where  there  will  be  football  and 
a  skating  pond  before  another  season.  They  are 
breaking  ground  to-day.  Seven  years  of  official  red 
tape  have  we  had  since  the  plans  were  first  made, 
and  it  isn't  all  unwound  yet ;  but  it  will  be  speedily 
now,  and  we  shall  hear  the  story  of  those  parks  and 
rejoice  that  the  day  of  reckoning  is  coming  for  the 
builder  without  a  soul.  Till  then  let  him  deck 
the  fronts  of  his  tenements  with  bravery  of  plate 
glass  and  brass  to  hide  the  darkness  within.  He 
has  done  his  worst. 

We  can  go  no  farther.  Yonder  lies  the  river. 
A  full  mile  we  have  come,  through  unbroken  ranks 
of  tenements  with  their  mighty,  pent-up  multitudes. 
Here  they  seem,  with  a  common  impulse,  to  over- 
flow into  the  street.  From  corner  to  corner  it  is 
crowded  with  girls  and  children,  dragging  babies 


THE   BLIGHT   OF   THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  109 

nearly  as  big  as  themselves,  with  desperate  endeavor 
to  lose  nothing  of  the  show.  There  is  a  funeral  in 
the  block.  Unnumbered  sewing-machines  cease 
for  once  their  tireless  rivalry  with  the  flour  mill  in 
the  next  block,  that  is  forever  grinding  in  a  vain 
effort  to  catch  up..  Heads  are  poked  from  windows. 
On  the  stoops  hooded  and  shawled  figures  have  front 
seats.  The  crowd  is  hardly  restrained  by  the  police- 
man and  the  undertaker  in  holiday  mourning,  who 
clear  a  path  by  main  strength  to  the  plumed  hearse. 
The  eager  haste,  the  frantic  rush  to  see,  —  what 
does  it  not  tell  of  these  starved  lives,  of  the  quality 
of  their  aims  and  ambitions?  The  mill  clatters 
loudly;  there  is  one  mouth  less  to  fill.  In  the 
midst  of  it  all,  with  clamor  of  urgent  gong,  the 
patrol  wagon  rounds  the  corner,  carrying  two 
policemen  precariously  perched  upon  a  struggling 
"drunk,"  a  woman.  The  crowd  scatters,  following 
the  new  sensation.  The  tragedies  of  death  and 
life  in  the  slum  have  met  together. 

Many  a  mile  I  might  lead  you  along  these  rivers, 
east  and  west,  through  the  island  of  Manhattan,  and 
find  little  else  than  we  have  seen.  The  great  crowd 
is  yet  below  Fourteenth  Street,  but  the  northward 
march  knows  no  slackening  of  pace.  As  the  tide 
sets  up-town,  it  reproduces  faithfully  the  scenes  of 
the  older  wards,  though  with  less  of  their  human 
interest  than  here,  where  the  old  houses,  in  all  their 


no  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

Ugliness,  have  yet  some  imprint  of  the  individuaUty 
of  their  tenants.  Only  on  feast  days  does  Little 
Italy,  in  Harlem,  recall  the  Bend  when  it  put  on 
holiday  attire.  Anything  more  desolate  and  dis- 
heartening than  the  unending  rows  of  tenements, 
all  alike  and  all  equally  repellent,  of  the  up-town 
streets,  it  is  hard  to  imagine.  Hell's  Kitchen  in  its 
ancient  wickedness  was  picturesque,  at  least,  with 
its  rocks  and  its  goats  and  shanties.  Since  the 
negroes  took  possession  it  is  only  dull,  except  when, 
once  in  a  while,  the  remnant  of  the  Irish  settlers 
make  a  stand  against  the  intruders.  Vain  hope  ! 
Perpetual  eviction  is  their  destiny.  Negro,  Italian, 
and  Jew,  biting  the  dust  with  many  a  bruised  head 
under  the  Hibernian's  stalwart  fist,  resistlessly  drive 
him  before  them,  nevertheless,  out  of  house  and 
home.  The  landlord  pockets  the  gate  money.  The 
old  robbery  still  goes  on.  Where  the  negro  pitches 
his  tent,  he  pays  more  rent  than  his  white  neighbor 
next  door,  and  is  a  better  tenant.  And  he  is  good 
game  forever.  He  never  buys  the  tenement,  as  the 
Jew  or  the  Italian  is  likely  to  do  when  he  has 
scraped  up  money  enough  to  reenact,  after  his  own 
fashion,  the  trick  taught  him  by  his  oppressor.  The 
black  column  has  reached  the  hundredth  street  on 
the  East  Side,  and  the  sixties  on  the  West,^  and 

^  There  is  an  advanced  outpost  of  blacks  as  far  up  as  One  Hundred 
and  Forty-fifth  Street,  but  the  main  body  lingers  yet  among  the  sixties. 


THE   BLIGHT   OF  THE   DOUBLE-DECKER  III 

there  for  the  present  it  halts.  Jammed  between 
Africa,  Italy,  and  Bohemia,  the  Irishman  has  aban- 
doned the  East  Side  up-town.  Only  west  of  Cen- 
tral Park  does  he  yet  face  his  foe,  undaunted  in 
defeat  as  in  victory.  The  local  street  nomenclature, 
in  which  the  directory  has  no  hand,  —  Nigger  Row, 
Mixed  Ale  Flats,  etc.,  —  indicates  the  hostile  camps 
with  unerring  accuracy. 

Up-town  or  down-town,  as  the  tenements  grow 
taller,  the  thing  that  is  rarest  to  find  is  the  home  of 
the  olden  days,  even  as  it  was  in  the  shanty  on  the 
rocks.  "  No  home,  no  family,  no  manhood,  no 
patriotism !  "  said  the  old  Frenchman.  Seventy- 
seven  per  cent  of  their  young  prisoners,  say  the 
managers  of  the  state  reformatory,  have  no  moral 
sense,  or  next  to  none.  "  Weakness,  not  wicked- 
ness, ails  them,"  adds  the  prison  chaplain ;  no  man- 
hood, that  is  to  say.  It  is  the  stamp  of  the  home 
that  is  lacking,  and  we  need  to  be  about  restoring 
it,  if  we  would  be  safe.  Years  ago,  roaming  through 
the  British  Museum,  I  came  upon  an  exhibit  that 
riveted  my  attention  as  nothing  else  had.  It  was  a 
huge  stone  arm,  torn  from  the  shoulder  of  some 
rock  image,  with  doubled  fist  and  every  rigid  muscle 
instinct  with  angry  menace.  Where  it  came  from 
or  what  was  its  story  I  do  not  know.  I  did  not 
ask.  It  was  its  message  to  us  I  was  trying  to  read. 
I  had  been  spending  weary  days  and  nights  in  the 


112  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

slums  of  London,  where  hatred  grew,  a  noxious 
crop,  upon  the  wreck  of  the  home.  Lying  there, 
mute  and  menacing,  the  great  fist  seemed  to  me 
like  a  shadow  thrown  from  the  gray  dawn  of  the 
race  into  our  busy  day  with  a  purpose,  a  grim,  un- 
heeded warning.  What  was  it  ?  In  the  slum  the 
question  haunts  me  yet.  They  perished,  the  em- 
pires those  rock-hewers  built,  and  the  governments 
reared  upon  their  ruins  are  long  since  dead  and 
forgotten.  They  were  born  to  die,  for  they  were 
not  built  upon  human  happiness,  but  upon  human 
terror  and  greed.  We  built  ours  upon  the  bed 
rock,  and  its  cornerstone  is  the  home.  With  this 
bitter  mockery  of  it  that  makes  the  slum,  can  it  be 
that  the  warning  is  indeed  for  us .? 


CHAPTER   V 

"  DRUV    INTO    DECENCY  " 

I  STOOD  at  Seven  Dials  and  heard  the  policeman's 
account  of  what  it  used  to  be.  Seven  Dials  is  no 
more  like  the  slum  of  old  than  is  the  Five  Points  to- 
day. The  conscience  of  London  wrought  upon  the 
one  as  the  conscience  of  New  York  upon  the  other. 
A  mission  house,  a  children's  refuge,  two  big  schools, 
and,  hard  by,  a  public  bath  and  a  wash-house,  stand 
as  the  record  of  the  battle  with  the  slum,  which,  with 
these  forces  in  the  field,  has  but  one  ending.  The 
policeman's  story  rambled  among  the  days  when 
things  were  different.  Then  it  was  dangerous  for  an 
officer  to  go  alone  there  at  night. 

Around  the  corner  there  came  from  one  of  the 
side  streets  a  procession  with  banners,  parading  in 
honor  and  aid  of  some  church  charity.  We  watched 
it  pass.  In  it  marched  young  men  and  boys  with 
swords  and  battle-axes,  and  upon  its  outskirts  skipped 
a  host  of  young  roughs  —  so  one  would  have  called 
them  but  for  the  evidence  of  their  honest  employ- 
ment —  who  rattled  collection  boxes,  reaping  a  har- 
vest of  pennies  from  far  and  near.  I  looked  at  the 
I  113 


114  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

battle-axes  and  the  collection  boxes,  and  thought  of 
forty  years  ago.  Where  was  the  Seven  Dials  of 
that  day,  and  the  men  who  gave  it  its  bad  name? 
I  asked  the  policeman. 

"  They  were  druv  into  decency,  sor,"  he  said, 
and  answered  from  his  own  experience  the  question 
ever  asked  by  faint-hearted  philanthropists.  "  My 
father,  he  done  duty  here  afore  me  in  '45.  The 
worst  dive  was  where  that  church  stands.  It  was 
always  full  of  thieves,"  —  whose  sons,  I  added 
mentally,  have  become  collectors  for  the  church. 
The  one  fact  was  a  whole  chapter  on  the  slum. 

London's  way  with  the  tenant  we  adopted  at  last 
in  New  York  with  the  slum  landlord.  He  was 
"  druv  into  decency."  We  had  to.  Moral  suasion 
had  been  stretched  to  the  limit.  The  point  had 
been  reached  where  one  knock-down  blow  out- 
weighed a  bushel  of  arguments.  It  was  all  very 
well  to  build  model  tenements  as  object  lessons  to 
show  that  the  thing  could  be  done ;  it  had  become 
necessary  to  enforce  the  lesson  by  demonstrating 
that  the  community  had  power  to  destroy  houses 
which  were  a  menace  to  its  life.  The  rear  tene- 
ments were  chosen  for  this  purpose. 

They  were  the  worst,  as  they  were  the  first,  of 
New  York's  tenements.  The  double-deckers  of 
which  I  have  spoken  had,  with  all  their  evils,  at  least 
this  to  their  credit,  that  their  death-rate    was  not 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  1 15 

nearly  as  high  as  that  of  the  old  houses.  That  was 
not  because  of  any  virtue  inherent  in  the  double- 
deckers,  but  because  the  earlier  tenements  were  old, 
and  built  in  a  day  that  knew  nothing  of  sanitary 
restrictions,  and  cared  less.  Hence  the  showing 
that  the  big  tenements  had  much  the  lowest  mor- 
tality. The  death-rate  does  not  sound  the  depths 
of  tenement-house  evils,  but  it  makes  a  record  that 
is  needed  when  it  comes  to  attacking  property 
rights.  The  mortality  of  the  rear  tenements  had 
long  been  a  scandal.  They  are  built  in  the  back 
yard,  generally  back  to  back  with  the  rear  buildings 
on  abutting  lots.  If  there  is  an  open  space  between 
them,  it  is  never  more  than  a  slit  a  foot  or  so  wide, 
and  gets  to  be  the  receptacle  of  garbage  and  filth 
of  every  kind ;  so  that  any  opening  made  in  these 
walls  for  purposes  of  ventilation  becomes  a  source 
of  greater  danger  than  if  there  were  none.  The 
last  count  that  was  made,  in  1900,  showed  that 
among  the  44,850  tenements  in  Manhattan  and  the 
Bronx  there  were  still  2143  rear  houses  left.^  Where 
they  are  the  death-rate  rises,  for  reasons  that  are 
apparent.  The  sun  cannot  reach  them.  They  are 
damp  and  dark,  and  the  tenants,  who  are  always  the 
poorest  and  most  crowded,  live  "  as  in  a  cage  open 
only  toward  the  front."      A  canvass   made   of  the 

^  That  was,  however,  a  reduction  of  236  since  1898,  when  the  census 
showed  2379  rear  houses. 


Il6  THE  BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

mortality  records  by  Dr.  Roger  S.  Tracy,  the  regis- 
trar of  records,  showed  that  while  in  the  First  Ward 
(the  oldest),  for  instance,  the  death-rate  in  houses 
standing  singly  on  the  lot  was  29.03  per  1000  of  the 
living,  where  there  were  rear  houses  it  rose  to  61.97. 
The  infant  death-rate  is  a  still  better  test ;  that  rose 
from  109.58  in  the  single  tenements  of  the  same 
ward  to  204.54  where  there  were  rear  houses.^  One 
in  every  five  babies  had  to  die ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
house  killed  it.  No  wonder  the  Gilder  commission 
styled  the  rear  tenements  "slaughter-houses,"  and 
called  upon  the  legislature  to  root  them  out,  and 
with  them  every  old,  ramshackle,  disease-breeding 
tenement  in  the  city. 

A  law  which  is  in  substance  a  copy  of  the  Eng- 
lish act  for  destroying  slum  property  was  passed 
in  the  spring  of  1895.  It  provided  for  the  seizure 
of  buildings  that  were  dangerous  to  the  public 
health  or  unfit  for  human  habitation,  and  their  de- 
struction upon  proper  proof,  with  compensation  to 
the  owner  on  a  sliding  scale  down  to  the  point  of 
entire  unfitness,  when  he  might  claim  only  the 
value  of  the  material  in  his  house.  Up  to  that 
time,  the  only  way  to  get  rid  of  such  a  house  had 
been  to  declare  it  a  nuisance  under  the  sanitary 
code ;  but  as  the  city  could  not  very  well  pay  for 
the  removal  of  a  nuisance,  to  order  it  down  seemed 

^  Report  of  Gilder  Tenement  House  Commission,  1894. 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY" 


117 


too  much  like  robbery ;  so  the  owner  was  allowed 
to  keep  it.  It  takes  time  and  a  good  many  lives  to 
grow  a  sentiment  such  as  this  law  expressed.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  respect  for  vested  rights  is  strong  in 
us  also.  I  remember  going  through  a  ragged 
school  in  London, 
once,  and  finding  the 
eyes  of  the  children  in 
the  infant  class  red  and 
sore.  Suspecting  some 
contagion,  I  made  in- 
quiries, and  was  told 
that  a  collar  factory 
next  door  was  the  cause 
of  the  trouble.  The 
fumes  from  it  poisoned 
the  children's  eyes. 

"  And  you  allow  it 
to  stay,  and  let  this 
thing  go  on  ?  "  I  asked, 
in  wonder. 

The  superintendent 
shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  It  is  their  factory,"  he  said. 

I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  something  that 
might  not  have  been  polite,  seeing  that  I  was  a 
guest,  when  I  remembered  that,  in  the  newspaper 
which  I  carried  in  my  pocket,  I  had  just  been  read- 
ing a  plea  of  some  honorable   M.  P.  for  a  much- 


■p 

^ 

■ 

^^^^^^^^V      'UT    '     '     mI 

^ 

1 

d 

1 

Richard  Watson  Gilder,  Chairman  of 
the  Tenement  House  Commission 
of  1894. 


Il8  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

needed  reform  in  the  system  of  counsel  fees,  then 
being  agitated  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
reply  of  the  solicitor  general  had  made  me  laugh. 
He  was  inclined  to  agree  with  the  honorable  mem- 
ber, but  still  preferred  to  follow  precedent  by  re- 
ferring the  matter  to  the  Inns  of  Court.  Quite 
incidentally,  he  mentioned  that  the  matter  had  been 
hanging  fire  in  the  House  two  hundred  years.  It 
seemed  very  English  to  me  then;  but  when  we 
afterward  came  to  tackle  our  rear  tenements,  and 
in  the  first  batch  there  was  a  row  which  I  knew 
to  have  been  picked  out  by  the  sanitary  inspector 
twenty-five  years  before  as  fit  only  to  be  destroyed, 
I  recognized  that  we  were  kin,  after  all. 

That  was  Gotham  Court.  It  was  first  on  the 
list,  and  the  Mott  Street  Barracks  came  next,  when, 
as  executive  officer  of  the  Good  Government  Clubs, 
I  helped  the  Board  of  Health  put  the  law  to  the 
test  the  following  year.  Roosevelt  was  Police 
President  and  Health  Commissioner;  nobody  was 
afraid  of  the  landlord.  The  Health  Department 
kept  a  list  of  66  old  houses,  with  a  population  of 
5460  tenants,  in  which  there  had  been  131 3  deaths 
in  a  little  over  five  years  (1889-94).  From  among 
them  we  picked  our  lot,  and  the  department  drove 
the  tenants  out.  The  owners  went  to  law,  one  and 
all;  but,  to  their  surprise  and  dismay,  the  courts 
held  with  the  health  officers.      The   moral  effect 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  1 19 

was  instant  and  overwhelming.  Rather  than  keep 
up  the  fight,  with  no  rent  coming  in,  the  landlords 
surrendered  at  discretion.  In  consideration  of  this, 
compensation  was  allowed  them  at  the  rate  of  about 
a  thousand  dollars  a  house,  although  they  were 
really  entitled  only  to  the  value  of  the  old  bricks. 
The  buildings  all  came  under  the  head  of  "  wholly 
unfit."  Gotham  Court,  with  its  sixteen  buildings, 
in  which,  many  years  before,  a  health  inspector 
counted  146  cases  of  sickness,  including  "all  kinds 
of  infectious  disease,"  was  bought  for  ^19,750,  and 
Mullen's  Court,  adjoining,  for  ^7251.  To  show  the 
character  of  all,  let  two  serve;  in  each  case  it  is 
the  official  record,  upon  which  seizure  was  made, 
that  is  quoted: 

No.  98  Catherine  Street :  "  The  floor  in  the 
apartments  and  the  wooden  steps  leading  to  the 
second-floor  apartment  are  broken,  loose,  saturated 
with  filth.  The  roof  and  eaves  gutters  leak,  ren- 
dering the  apartments  wet.  The  two  apartments 
on  the  first  floor  consist  of  one  room  each,  in  which 
the  tenants  are  compelled  to  cook,  eat,  and  sleep. 
The  back  walls  are  defective,  the  house  wet  and 
damp,  and  unfit  for  human  habitation.  It  robs  the 
surrounding  houses  of  light." 

*'  The  sunlight  never  enters "  was  the  constant 
refrain. 

No.  17  Sullivan  Street:  "Occupied  by  the  lowest 


I20  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

whites  and  negroes,  living  together.  The  houses 
are  decayed  from  cellar  to  garret,  and  filthy  beyond 
description,  —  the  filthiest,  in  fact,  we  have  ever 
seen.  The  beams,  the  floors,  the  plaster  on  the 
walls,  where  there  is  any  plaster,  are  rotten,  and 
alive  with  vermin.  They  are  a  menace  to  the 
public  health,  and  cannot  be  repaired.  Their 
annual  death-rate  in  five  years  was  41.38." 

The  sunlight  enters  where  these  stood,  at  all 
events,  and  into  58  other  yards  that  once  were 
plague  spots.  Of  94  rear  tenements  seized  that 
year,  60  were  torn  down,  ^^  of  them  voluntarily  by 
the  owners;  29  were  remodelled  and  allowed  to 
stand,  chiefly  as  workshops;  5  other  houses  were 
standing  empty,  and  yielding  no  rent,  when  I  last 
heard  of  them.  I  suppose  they  have  been  demol- 
ished since.  The  worst  of  them  all,  the  Mott  Street 
Barracks,  were  taken  into  court  by  the  owner;  but 
all  the  judges  and  juries  in  the  land  had  no  power 
to  put  them  back  when  it  was  decided  upon  a  tech- 
nicality that  they  should  not  have  been  destroyed 
offhand.  It  was  a  case  of  "  They  can't  put  you  in 
jail  for  that."  —  "  Yes,  but  I  am  in  jail."  They  were 
gone,  torn  down  under  the  referee's  decision  that 
they  ought  to  go,  before  the  Appellate  Division 
called  a  halt.  We  were  not  in  a  mood  to  trifle 
with  the  Barracks,  or  risk  any  of  the  law's  delays. 
In  1888  I  counted  360  tenants  in  these  tenements, 


The  Mott  Street  Barracks. 


\ 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  123 

front  and  rear,  all  Italians,  and  the  infant  death- 
rate  of  the  Barracks  that  year  was  325  per  icxx). 
There  were  forty  babies,  and  one  in  three  of  them 
had  to  die.  The  general  infant  death-rate  for  the 
whole  tenement-house  population  that  year  was 
88.38.  In  the  four  years  following,  during  which 
the  population  and  the  death-rate  of  the  houses 
were  both  reduced  with  an  effort,  fifty-one  funerals 
went  out  of  the.  Barracks.  With  entire  fitness, 
a  cemetery  corporation  held  the  mortgage  upon 
the  property.  The  referee  allowed  it  the  price  of 
opening  one  grave,  in  the  settlement,  gave  one  dol- 
lar to  the  lessee,  and  one  hundred  and  ten  dollars 
to  the  landlord,  who  refused  to  collect  and  took  his 
case  into  the  courts.  We  waited  to  see  the  land- 
lord attack  the  law  itself  on  the  score  of  constitu- 
tionality, but  he  did  not.  The  Court  of  Appeals 
decided  that  it  had  not  been  shown  that  the  Bar- 
racks might  not  have  been  used  for  some  other 
purpose  than  a  tenement  and  that  therefore  we  had 
been  hasty.  The  city  paid  damages,  but  it  was  all 
right.  It  was  emphatically  a  case  of  haste  making 
for  speed.  So  far  the  law  stands  unchallenged, 
both  here  and  in  Massachusetts,  where  they  de- 
stroyed twice  as  many  unfit  houses  as  we  did  in 
New  York  and  stood  their  ground  on  its  letter, 
paying  the  owners  the  bare  cost  of  the  old  timbers. 
As  in  every  other  instance,  we  seized  only  the 


124  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

rear  houses  at  the  Barracks ;  but  within  a  year 
or  two  the  front  houses  were  also  sold  and  de- 
stroyed too,  and  so  disappeared  quite  the  worst 
rookery  that  was  left  on  Manhattan  Island.  Those 
of  us  who  had  explored  it  with  the  "midnight 
police  "  in  its  worst  days  had  no  cause  to  wonder 
at  its  mortality.  In  Berlin  they  found  the  death- 
rate  per  thousand  to  be  163.5  where  a  family  occu- 
pied one  room,  22.5  where  it  lived  in  two  rooms, 
7.5  in  the  case  of  three-room  dwellers,  and  5.4 
where  they  had  four  rooms.^  Does  any  one  ask  yet 
why  we  fight  the  slum  in  Berlin  and  New  York.? 
The  Barracks  in  those  days  suggested  the  first  kind. 
I  have  said  before  that  I  do  not  believe  in  paying 
the  slum  landlord  for  taking  his  hand  off  our  throats, 
when  we  have  got  the  grip  on  him  in  turn.  Mr. 
Roger  Foster,  who  as  a  member  of  the  Tenement 
House  Committee  drew  the  law,  and  as  counsel  for 
the  Health  Department  fought  the  landlords  suc- 
cessfully in  the  courts,  holds  to  the  opposite  view. 
I  am  bound  to  say  that  instances  turned  up  in  which 
it  did  seem  a  hardship  to  deprive  the  owners  of  even 
such  property.  I  remember  especially  a  tenement 
in  Roosevelt  Street,  which  was  the  patrimony  and 
whole  estate  of  two  children.  With  the  rear  house 
taken  away,  the  income  from  the  front  would  not  be 
enough  to  cover  the  interest  on  the  mortgage.     It 

*  "  Municipal  Government  in  Continental  Europe,"  by  Albert  Shaw. 


«DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  125 

was  one  of  those  things  that  occasionally  make 
standing  upon  abstract  principle  so  very  uncomfort- 
able. I  confess  I  never  had  the  courage  to  ask 
what  was  done  in  their  case.  I  know  that  the  tene- 
ment went,  and  I  hope  —  well,  never  mind  what 
I  hope.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  The 
house  is  down,  and  the  main  issue  decided  upon  its 
merits. 

In  the  94  tenements  (counting  the  front  houses 
in ;  they  cannot  be  separated  from  the  rear  tene- 
ments in  the  death  registry)  there  were  in  five  years 
956  deaths,  a  rate  of  62.9  at  a  time  when  the  general 
city  death-rate  was  24.63.  It  was  the  last  and 
heaviest  blow  aimed  at  the  abnormal  mortality  of  a 
city  that  ought,  by  reason  of  many  advantages,  to 
be  one  of  the  healthiest  in  the  world.  With  clean 
streets,  pure  milk,  medical  school  inspection,  anti- 
toxin treatment  of  deadly  diseases,  and  better  sani- 
tary methods  generally ;  with  the  sunlight  let  into  its 
slums,  and  its  worst  plague  spots  cleaned  out,  the 
death-rate  of  New  York  came  down  from  26.32  per 
1000  inhabitants  in  1887  to  19.53  ^^  ^^97'  Inas- 
much as  a  round  half  million  was  added  to  its  popu- 
lation within  the  ten  years,  it  requires  little  figuring 
to  show  that  the  number  whose  lives  were  literally 
saved  by  reform  would  people  a  city  of  no  mean  pro- 
portions. The  extraordinary  spell  of  hot  weather  in 
the  summer  of  1896,  when  the  temperature  hung  for 


126  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

ten  consecutive  days  in  the  nineties,  with  days  and 
nights  of  extreme  discomfort,  brought  out  the  full 
meaning  of  this.  While  many  were  killed  by  sun- 
stroke, the  population  as  a  whole  was  shown  to  have 
acquired,  in  better  hygienic  surroundings,  a  much 
greater  power  of  resistance.  It  yielded  slowly  to 
the  heat.  Where  two  days  had  been  sufficient,  in 
former  years,  to  send  the  death-rate  up,  it  now  took 
five ;  and  the  infant  mortality  remained  low  through- 
out the  dreadful  trial.  Perhaps  the  substitution  of 
beer  for  whiskey  as  a  summer  drink  had  something 
to  do  with  it ;  but  Colonel  Waring's  broom  and  un- 
political sanitation  had  more.  Since  it  spared  him 
so  many  voters,  the  politician  ought  to  have  been 
grateful  for  this ;  but  he  was  not.  Death-rates  are 
not  as  good  political  arguments  as  tax  rates,  we 
found  out.  In  the  midst  of  it  all,  a  policeman  whom 
I  knew  went  to  his  Tammany  captain  to  ask  if  Good 
Government  Clubs  were  political  clubs  within  the 
meaning  of  the  law  which  forbade  policemen 
joining  such.  The  answer  he  received  set  me  to 
thinking:  "Yes,  the  meanest,  worst  kind  of  political 
clubs,  they  are."  Yet  they  had  done  nothing  worse 
than  to  save  the  babies,  the  captain's  with  the  rest. 
The  landlord  read  the  signs  better,  and  ran  to 
cover  till  the  storm  should  blow  over.  Houses  that 
had  hardly  known  repairs  since  they  were  built 
were  put  in  order  with  all  speed.      All  over  the 


«DRUV  INTO   DECENCY"  12/ 

city,  he  made  haste  to  set  his  house  to  rights,  lest  it 
be  seized  or  brought  to  the  bar  in  other  ways.  The 
Good  Government  Clubs  had  their  hands  full  that 
year  (1896-97).  They  made  war  upon  the  dark  hall 
in  the  double-decker,  and  upon  the  cruller  bakery. 
They  compelled  the  opening  of  small  parks,  or  the 
condemnation  of  sites  for  them  anyway,  exposed 
the  abuses  of  the  civil  courts,  the  "poor  man's 
courts,"  urged  on  the  building  of  new  schools, 
cleaned  up  in  the  Tombs  prison  and  hastened  the 
demolition  of  the  wicked  old  pile,  and  took  a  hand 
in  evolving  a  sensible  and  humane  system  of  dealing 
with  the  young  vagrants  who  were  going  to  waste 
on  free  soup.  The  proposition  to  establish  a  farm 
colony  for  their  reclamation  was  met  with  the  chal- 
lenge at  Albany  that  "  we  have  had  enough  reform 
in  New  York  City,"  and,  as  the  event  proved,  for  the 
time  being  we  had  really  gone  as  far  as  we  could. 
But  even  that  was  a  good  long  way.  Some  things 
had  been  nailed  that  could  never  again  be  undone ; 
and  hand  in  hand  with  the  effort  to  destroy  had 
gone  another  to  build  up,  that  promised  to  set  us 
far  enough  ahead  to  appeal  at  last  successfully  to 
the  self-interest  of  the  builder,  if  not  to  his  human- 
ity; or,  failing  that,  to  compel  him  to  decency.  If 
that  promise  has  not  been  all  kept,  the  end  is  not 
yet.     I  believe  it  will  be  kept. 

The  movement  for  reform,  in  the  matter  of  hous- 


128 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


ing  the  people,  had  proceeded  upon  a  clearly  out- 
lined plan  that  apportioned  to  each  of  several  forces 
its  own  share  of  the  work.  At  a  meeting  held  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Association  for  Improving  the 

Condition  of  the  Poor, 
early  in  the  days  of 
the  movement,  the  field 
had  been  gone  over 
thoroughly.  To  the 
Good  Government 
Clubs  fell  the  task,  as 
already  set  forth,  of 
compelling  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  existing 
tenement-house  laws. 
D.  O.  Mills,  the  phi- 
lanthropic banker,  de- 
clared his  purpose  to 
build  hotels  which 
should  prove  that  a 
bed  and  lodging  as  good  as  any  could  be  furnished 
to  the  great  army  of  homeless  men  at  a  price  that 
would  compete  with  the  cheap  lodging  houses,  and 
yet  yield  a  profit  to  the  owner.  On  behalf  of  a 
number  of  well-known  capitalists,  who  had  been 
identified  with  the  cause  of  tenement-house  reform 
for  years,  Robert  Fulton  Cutting,  the  president  of 
the  Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of  the 


R.  Fulton  Cutting,  Chairman  of  the 
Citizens'  Union. 


«DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  1 29 

Poor,  offered  to  build  homes  for  the  working  people 
that  should  be  worthy  of  the  name,  on  a  large  scale. 
A  company  was  formed,  and  chose  for  its  president 
Dr.  Elgin  R.  L.  Gould,  author  of  the  government 
report  on  the  "  Housing  of  the  Working  People," 
the  standard  work  on  the  subject.  A  million  dollars 
was  raised  by  public  subscription,  and  operations 
were  begun  at  once. 

Two  ideas  were  kept  in  mind  as  fundamental : 
one,  that  charity  that  will  not  pay  will  not  stay ;  the 
other,  that  nothing  can  be  done  with  the  twenty- 
five-foot  lot.  It  is  the  primal  curse  of  our  housing 
system,  and  any  effort  toward  better  things  must 
reckon  with  it  first.  Nineteen  lots  on  Sixty-eighth 
and  Sixty-ninth  streets,  west  of  Tenth  Avenue, 
were  purchased  of  Mrs.  Alfred  Corning  Clark,  who 
took  one  tenth  of  the  capital  stock  of  the  City  and 
Suburban  Homes  Company;  and  upon  these  was 
erected  the  first  block  of  tenements.  This  is  the 
neighborhood  toward  which  the  population  has  been 
setting  with  ever  increasing  congestion.  Already 
in  1895  the  Twenty-second  Ward  contained  nearly 
200,000  souls.  I  gave  figures  in  the  previous 
chapter  that  showed  a  crowding  of  more  than 
1 1 00  persons  per  acre  in  some  of  the  blocks  here 
where  the  conditions  of  the  notorious  Tenth  Ward 
are  certain  to  be  reproduced,  if  indeed  they  are 
not   exceeded.      In   the    Fifteenth   Assembly    Dis- 


130  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE    SLUM 

trict,  some  distance  below,  but  on  the  same  line, 
the  first  sociological  canvass  of  the  Federation  of 
Churches  had  found  the  churches,  schools,  and  other 
educational  agencies  marshalling  a  frontage  of  756 
feet  on  the  street,  while  the  saloon  fronts  stretched 
themselves  over  nearly  a  mile;  so  that,  said  the 
compiler  of  these  pregnant  facts,  "  saloon  social 
ideals  are  minting  themselves  on  the  minds  of  the 
people  at  the  ratio  of  seven  saloon  thoughts  to  one 
educational  thought."  It  would  not  have  been  easy 
to  find  a  spot  better  fitted  for  the  experiment  of 
restoring  the  home  to  its  place. 

The  Alfred  Corning  Clark  buildings,  as  they 
were  called  in  recognition  of  the  effort  of  this  pub- 
lic-spirited woman,  have  at  this  writing  been  occu- 
pied five  years.  They  harbor  nearly  four  hundred 
families,  as  contented  a  lot  as  I  ever  saw  anywhere. 
The  one  tenant  who  left  in  disgust  was  a  young 
doctor  who  had  settled  on  the  estate,  thinking  he 
could  pick  up  a  practice  among  so  many.  But  he 
couldn't.  They  were  not  often  sick,  those  tenants. 
Last  year  only  three  died,  and  they  were  all  killed 
while  away  from  home.  So  he  had  good  cause  of 
complaint.  The  rest  had  none,  and  having  none, 
they  stay,  which  is  no  mean  blow  struck  for  the 
home  in  the  battle  with  the  slum.  The  home 
feeling  can  never  grow  where  people  do  not  stay 
long  enough  to  feel  at  home,  any  more  than  the 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  1 33 

plant  can  which  the  child  is  pulling  up  every  two 
or  three  days  to  "  see  if  it  has  roots." 

Half  the  tenement  house  population  —  and  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  ought  not  to  say  the  whole  of  it  — 
is  everlastingly  on  the  move.  Dr.  Gould  quotes  as 
an  instance  of  it  the  experience  of  an  assembly  dis- 
trict leader  in  distributing  political  circulars  among 
the  people  in  a  good  tenement  neighborhood.  In 
three  months  after  the  enrolment  lists  had  been 
made  out,  one-third  of  the  tenants  had  moved.  No 
doubt  the  experience  was  typical.  How  can  the 
one  who  hardly  knows  what  a  home  means  be 
expected  to  have  any  pride  or  interest  in  his  home 
in  the  larger  sense :  the  city  ?  And  to  what  in 
such  men  is  one  to  appeal  in  the  interests  of  civic 
betterment }  That  is  why  every  effort  that  goes  to 
help  tie  the  citizen  to  one  spot  long  enough  to  give 
him  the  proprietary  sense  in  it  which  is  the  first 
step  toward  civic  interest  and  pride,  is  of  such 
account.  It  is  one  way  in  which  the  public  schools 
as  neighborhood  houses  in  the  best  sense  could  be 
of  great  help,  and  a  chief  factor  in  the  success  of 
the  social  settlement.  And  that  is  why  model  tene- 
ments, which  pay  and  foster  the  home,  give  back 
more  than  a  money  interest  to  the  community. 

They  must  pay,  for  else,  as  I  said,  they  will  not 
stay.  These  pay  four  per  cent,  and  are  expected  to 
pay  five,  the  company's  limit.     So  it  is  not  strange 


134  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

that  the  concern  has  prospered.  It  has  since  raised 
more  than  one  million  of  dollars,  and  has  built 
another  block,  with  room  for  338  families,  on  First 
Avenue  and  on  Sixty-fourth  and  Sixty-fifth  streets, 
within  hail  of  Battle  Row,  of  anciently  warlike 
memory.  Still  another  block  is  going  up  at 
Avenue  A  and  Seventy-eighth  Street,  and  in  West 
Sixty-second  Street,  where  the  colored  population 
crowds,  the  company  is  erecting  two  buildings  for 
negro  tenants,  where  they  will  live  as  well  as  their 
white  fellows  do  in  their  model  tenements,  —  a  long- 
delayed  act  of  justice,  for  as  far  back  as  any  one  can 
remember  the  colored  man  has  been  paying  more 
and  getting  less  for  his  money  in  New  York  than 
whites  of  the  same  grade,  who  are  poorer  tenants 
every  way.  The  Company's  '*  city  homes  "  come  as 
near  being  that  as  any  can.  There  is  light  and  air 
in  abundance,  steam  heat  in  winter  in  the  latest 
ones,  fire-proof  stairs,  and  deadened  partitions  to 
help  on  the  privacy  that  is  at  once  the  most  needed 
and  hardest  to  get  in  a  tenement.  The  houses  do 
not  look  like  barracks.  Any  one  who  has  ever  seen 
a  row  of  factory  tenements  that  were  just  houses, 
not  homes,  will  understand  how  much  that  means. 
I  can  think  of  some  such  rows  now,  with  their  ugly 
brick  fronts,  straight  up  and  down  without  a  break 
and  without  a  vine  or  a  window-box  of  greens  or 
flowers,  and  the  mere  thought  of   them   gives  me 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  1 35 

the  blues  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  There  is  nothing 
of  that  about  these  tenements,  unless  it  be  the  long 
play-yard  between  the  buildings  in  Sixty-eighth  and 
Sixty-ninth  streets.  It  is  too  narrow  to  have  any- 
thing in  it  but  asphalt.  But  the  rest  makes  up  for 
it  in  part. 

All  together,  the  company  has  redeemed  its 
promise  of  real  model  tenements;  and  it  has  had 
no  trouble  with  its  tenants.  The  few  and  simple 
rules  are  readily  understood  as  being  for  the  general 
good,  and  so  obeyed.  It  is  the  old  story,  told  years 
and  years  ago  by  Mr.  Alfred  T.  White  when  he 
had  built  his  Riverside  tenements  in  Brooklyn. 
The  tenants  "  do  not  have  to  come  up "  to  the 
landlord's  standard.  They  are  more  than  abreast 
of  him  in  his  utmost  endeavor,  if  he  will  only  use 
common  sense  in  the  management  of  his  property. 
They  do  that  in  the  City  and  Suburban  Homes 
Company's  buildings.  They  give  their  tenants 
shower-baths  and  a  friend  for  a  rent-collector,  their 
children  playrooms  and  Christmas  parties,  and  the 
whole  neighborhood  feels  the  stimulus  of  the  new 
and  humane  plan.  In  all  Battle  Row  there  has 
not  been  a  scrap,  let  alone  an  old-time  shindy,  since 
the  "accommodation  flats"  came  upon  the  scene. 
That  is  what  they  call  them.  It  is  an  everyday 
observation  that  the  Row  has  "  come  up "  since 
some  of  the  old  houses  have  been  remodelled.     The 


136  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

new  that  are  being  built  aim  visibly  toward  the 
higher  standard. 

The  company's  rents  average  a  dollar  a  week  per 
room,  and  are  a  trifle  higher  than  those  of  the  old 
tenements  round  about ;  but  they  have  so  much 
more  in  the  way  of  comfort  that  the  money  is  eagerly 
paid ;  nor  is  the  difference  so  great  that  the  "  pick- 
ing of  tenants  "  amounts  to  more  than  the  putting 
of  a  premium  on  steadiness,  sobriety,  and  cleanli- 
ness, which  in  itself  is  a  service  to  render.  One 
experience  of  the  management  which  caused  some 
astonishment,  but  upon  reflection  was  accepted  as 
an  encouraging  sign,  was  the  refusal  of  the  tenants 
to  use  the  common  wash-tubs  in  the  laundry.  They 
are  little  used  to  this  day.  The  women  will  use 
the  drying  racks,  but  they  object  to  rubbing  elbows 
with  their  neighbors  while  they  wash  their  clothes. 
It  is,  after  all,  a  sign  that  the  tenement  that 
smothers  individuality  left  them  this  useful  handle, 
and  if  the  experience  squashed  the  hopes  of  some 
who  dreamed  of  municipal  wash-houses  on  the 
Glasgow  plan,  there  is  nothing  to  grieve  over. 
Every  peg  of  personal  pride  rescued  from  the  tene- 
ment is  worth  a  thousand  theories  for  hanging  the 
hope  of  improvement  on. 

With  ^2,300,000  invested  by  this  time,  the  com- 
pany has  built  city  homes  for  1450  families,  and 
has  only  made  a  beginning.     All  the  money  that 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  1 37 

is  needed  for  going  on  with  its  work  is  in  sight. 
Nor  are  the  rich  the  only  investors.  Of  the  400 
stockholders  250  have  small  lots,  ten  shares  and  less 
each,  a  healthy  sign  that  the  company  is  holding 
the  confidence  of  the  community.  It  has  fairly 
earned  it.  No  one  could  have  done  a  greater  and 
better  thing  for  the  metropolis  than  to  demonstrate 
that  it  is  possible  to  build  homes  for  the  toilers  as 
a  business  and  net  a  business  interest  upon  the 
investment. 

The  statement  is  emphasized  by  the  company's 
experience  with  the  suburban  end  of  its  work.  It 
bought  sites  for  two  or  three  hundred  little  cottages 
out  on  Long  Island,  but  within  the  greater  city,  and 
only  half  an  hour  by  trolley  or  elevated  from  the 
City  Hall.  A  hundred  houses  were  built,  neat  and 
cosey  homes  of  brick  and  timber,  each  in  its  own 
garden ;  and  a  plan  was  devised  under  which  the 
purchaser  had  twenty  years  to  pay  for  the  property. 
A  life  insurance  policy  protected  the  seller  and 
secured  the  house  to  the  widow  should  the  bread- 
winner die.  The  plan  has  worked  well  in  Bel- 
gium under  the  eyes  of  the  government,  but  it 
failed  to  attract  buyers  here.  Of  those  whom  it 
did  attract  at  the  outset,  not  a  few  have  given  up 
and  gone  away.  When  I  went  out  to  have  a 
look  at  the  place  the  year  after  Homewood  had 
been  settled,  seventy-two  houses  had  found  owners 


138  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

under  the  company's  plans.  After  four  years  fifty- 
six  only  are  so  held,  ten  have  been  bought  outright, 
and  three  sold  under  contract.  Practically  the 
company  has  had  to  give  up  its  well-thought-out 
plan  and  rent  as  many  of  the  houses  as  it  could. 
Nine  were  vacant  this  last  spring. 

So  what  we  all  thought  the  "way  out "  of  the  slum 
seems  barred  for  the  time  being.  For  there  is  no 
other  explanation  of  the  failure  than  that  the  people 
will  not  go  "  among  the  stumps."  Lack  of  facilities 
for  getting  there  played  a  part,  possibly,  but  a  minor 
one,  and  now  there  is  no  such  grievance.  The 
simple  fact  is  that  the  home-feeling  that  makes  a 
man  rear  a  home  upon  the  soil  as  the  chief  ambition 
of  his  life  was  not  there.  The  tenement  and  the 
flat  have  weakened  that  peg  among  the  class  of 
workers  for  whom  Homewood  was  planned.  I 
hate  to  say  that  they  have  broken  the  peg,  for  I 
do  not  believe  it.  But  it  has  been  hurt  without 
doubt.  They  longed  for  the  crowds.  The  grass 
and  the  trees  and  the  birds  and  the  salt  breath  of 
the  sea  did  not  speak  to  them  in  a  language  they 
understood.  The  brass  bands  and  the  hand-organs, 
the  street  cries  and  the  rush  and  roar  of  the  city, 
had  made  them  forget  their  childhood's  tongue. 
For  the  children  understood,  even  in  the  gutter. 

"  It  means,  I  suppose,"  said  Dr.  Gould  to  me, 
when  we  had  talked  it  all  over,  "  that  we  are  and 


«DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  139 

always  shall  be  a  tenement  house  city,  and  that  we 
have  got  to  reckon  with  and  plan  for  that  only." 

I  think  not.  I  believe  he  is  mistaken.  And  yet 
I  can  give  no  other  ground  for  my  belief  than  my 
unyielding  faith  that  things  will  come  right  yet,  if 
it  does  take  time.  They  are  not  right  as  they  are. 
Man  is  not  made  to  be  born  and  to  live  all  his  life 
in  a  box,  packed  away  with  his  fellows  like  so  many 
herring  in  a  barrel.  He  is  here  in  this  world  for 
something  that  is  not  attained  in  that  way;  but  is, 
if  not  attained,  at  least  perceived  when  the  daisies 
and  the  robins  come  in.  If  to  help  men  perceive  it 
is  all  we  can  do  in  our  generation,  that  is  a  good  deal. 
But  I  believe  that  before  our  children  have  come  to 
the  divide,  perhaps  before  we  are  gone,  we  shall  see 
the  tide  of  the  last  century's  drift  to  the  cities  turn, 
under  the  impulse  of  the  new  forces  that  are  being 
harnessed  for  man's  work,  and  Homewood  come  to 
its  rights.  I  say  I  believe  it.  I  wish  I  could  say 
I  knew ;  but  then  you  would  ask  for  my  proofs,  and 
I  haven't  any.     For  all  that,  I  still  believe  it. 

Meanwhile  Dr.  Gould's  advice  is  good  sense. 
If  he  is  right,  it  is  of  the  last  importance ;  if  I  am 
right,  it  is  still  the  way  to  proving  me  so  by  holding 
on  to  what  is  left  of  the  home  in  the  tenement  and 
making  the  most  of  it.  That  we  have  taken  the 
advice  is  good  ground  for  hope,  in  the  face  of  the 
fact  that  New  York  has  still  the  worst  housing  in 


140  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

the  world.  We  can  now  destroy  what  is  not  fit  to 
stand.  We  have  done  it,  and  the  republic  yet  sur- 
vives. The  slum  landlord  would  have  had  us 
believe  that  it  must  perish  with  his  rookeries.  We 
are  building  model  tenements  and  making  them 
pay.  Alfred  T.  White's  Riverside  tenements  are  as 
good  to-day  as  when  they  were  built  a  dozen  years 
ago  —  better  if  anything,  for  they  were  honestly  built 
—  and  in  all  that  time  they  have  paid  five  and  six 
per  cent,  and  even  more.  Dr.  Gould  found  that  only 
six  per  cent  of  all  the  great  model  housing  opera- 
tions which  he  examined  for  the  government  here 
and  abroad  had  failed  to  pay.  All  the  rest  were 
successful.  And  by  virtue  of  the  showing  we  have 
taken  the  twenty-five-foot  lot  itself  by  the  throat. 

Three  years  ago,  speaking  of  it  as  the  one  thing 
that  was  in  the  way  of  progress  in  New  York,  I 
wrote :  "  It  will  continue  to  be  in  the  way.  A 
man  who  has  one  lot  will  build  on  it;  it  is  his 
right.  The  state,  which  taxes  his  lot,  has  no  right 
to  confiscate  it  by  forbidding  him  to  make  it  yield 
him  an  income,  on  the  plea  that  he  might  build 
something  which  would  be  a  nuisance.  But  it  can 
so  order  the  building  that  it  shall  not  be  a  nuisance  ; 
that  is  not  only  its  right,  but  its  duty." 

That  duty  has  been  done  since ;  let  me  tell  how. 
Popular  sentiment,  taking  more  and  more  firmly 
hold  of   the  fact  that  there  is  a  direct  connection 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  143 

between  helpless  poverty  and  bad  housing,  shaped 
itself  in  1898  into  a  volunteer  Tenement  House 
Committee  which,  as  an  effective  branch  of  the 
Charity  Organization  Society,  drew  up  and  pre- 
sented to  the  municipal  authorities  a  reform  code  of 
building  ordinances  affecting  the  dwellings  of  the 
poor.  But  Tammany  was  back,  and  they  would  not 
listen  at  the  City  Hall.  Seeing  which,  the  com- 
mittee made  up  its  mind  to  appeal  to  the  people 
themselves  in  such  fashion  that  it  should  be  heard. 
That  was  the  way  the  Tenement  House  Exhibition 
of  the  winter  of  1900  came  into  existence. 

Rich  and  poor  came  to  see  that  speaking  record 
of  a  city's  sorry  plight,  and  at  last  we  all  under- 
stood. Not  to  understand  after  one  look  at  the 
poverty  and  disease  maps  that  hung  on  the  wall 
was  to  declare  oneself  a  dullard.  The  tenements 
were  all  down  in  them,  with  the  size  of  them  and 
the  air  space  within,  if  there  was  any.  Black  dots 
upon  the  poverty  maps  showed  that  for  each  one 
five  families  in  that  house  had  applied  for  charity 
within  a  given  time.  There  were  those  that  had 
as  many  as  fifteen  of  the  ominous  marks,  showing 
that  seventy-five  families  had  asked  aid  from  the 
one  house.  To  find  a  tenement  free  from  the  taint 
one  had  to  search  long  and  with  care.  Upon  the 
disease  maps  the  scourge  of  tuberculosis  lay  like  a 
black  pall  over  the  double-decker  districts.     A  year 


144  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

later  the  State  Commission,  that  continued  the 
work  then  begun,  said :  "  There  is  hardly  a  tene- 
ment house  in  which  there  has  not  been  at  least 
one  case  of  pulmonary  tuberculosis  within  the  last 
five  years,  and  in  some  houses  there  have  been  as 
many  as  twenty-two  different  cases  of  this  terrible 
disease.  There  are  over  8000  deaths  a  year  in 
New  York  City  from  this  disease  alone,  at  least 
20,000  cases  of  well-developed  and  recognized  tuber- 
culosis, and  in  addition  a  large  number  of  obscure 
and  incipient  cases.  The  connection  between  tu- 
berculosis and  the  character  of  the  tenement  houses 
in  which  the  poor  people  live  is  of  the  very 
closest."  ^ 

A  model  was  shown  of  a  typical  East  Side  block, 
containing  2781.  persons  on  two  acres  of  land, 
nearly  every  bit  of  which  was  covered  with  build- 
ings. There  were  466  babies  in  the  block  (under 
five  years),  but  not  a  bath-tub  except  one  that 
hung  in  an  air  shaft.  Of  the  1588  rooms  441  were 
dark,  with  no  ventilation  to  the  outer  air  except 
through  other  rooms ;  635  rooms  gave  upon  twi- 
light "  air  shafts."  In  five  years  32  cases  of  tuber- 
culosis had  been  reported  from  that  block,  and  in 
that  time  660  different   families  in  the  block  had 

*  Report  of  the  Tenement  House  Commission  of  1900.  The  secre- 
tary of  that  body  said :  "  Well  might  those  maps  earn  for  New  York 
the  title  of  the  City  of  the  Living  Death." 


m 


E^ 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY" 


147 


applied  for  charity.  The  year  before  the  Bureau 
of  Contagious  Diseases  had  registered  13  cases  of 
diphtheria  there.  However,  the  rent-roll  was  all 
right.     It  amounted  to  $113,964  a  year. 

Those  facts  told.  New  York  —  the  whole  coun- 
try—  woke  up.  More  than  170  architects  sent  in 
plans  in  the  competi- 
tion for  a  humane  ten- 
ement that  should  be 
commercially  profita- 
ble. Roosevelt  was  gov- 
ernor, and  promptly 
appointed  a  Tenement 
House  Commission, 
the  third  citizen  body 
appointed  for  such  pur- 
poses by  authority  of 
the  state.  Mr.  Robert 
de  Forest,  a  distin- 
guished lawyer  and  a 
public-spirited  man, 
who  had  been  at  the 
head  of  the  Charity 
Organization  Society  and  of  the  relief  efforts  I 
spoke  of,  in  time  became  its  chairman,  and  commis- 
sioner of  the  new  Tenement  House  Department 
that  was  created  by  the  new  charter  of  the  city  to 
carry  into  effect  the  law  the  commission  drew  up. 


Robert  W.  de  Forest,  Chairman  of  the 
Tenement  House  Commission  of 
1900. 


148  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

At  this  writing,  with  the  department  not  yet  fully 
organized,  it  is  too  early  to  say  with  any  degree 
of  certainty  exactly  how  far  the  last  two  years  have 
set  us  ahead ;  but  this  much  is  certain : 

"  Discretion  "  is  dead  —  at  last.  In  Manhattan, 
no  superintendent  of  buildings  shall  have  leave 
after  this  to  pen  tenants  in  a  building  with  stairs 
of  wood  because  he  thinks  with  luck  it  might  burn 
slowly;  nor  in  Brooklyn  shall  a  deputy  commis- 
sioner rate  a  room  with  a  window  opening  on  a 
hall,  or  a  skylight  covered  over  at  the  top,  "the 
outer  air."  ^  Of  these  things  there  is  an  end.  The 
air  shaft  that  was  a  narrow  slit  between  towering 
walls  has  become  a  "  court,"  a  yard  big  enough  for 
children  to  run  in.  Thirty  per  cent  of  the  tene- 
ment-house lot  must  be  open  to  the  sun.  The 
double-decker  has  had  its  day,  and  it  is  over.  A 
man  may,  still  build  a  tenement  on  a  twenty-five- 
foot  lot  if  he  so  chooses,  but  he  can  hardly  pack 
four  families  on  each  floor  of  it  and  keep  within  the 
law.  He  can  do  much  better,  and  make  an  ample 
profit,  by  crossing  the  lot  line  and  building  on  forty 
or  fifty  feet ;  in  consequence  of  which,  building 
being  a  business,  he  does  so.  In  a  lot  of  half  a 
hundred  tenement  plans  I  looked  over  at  the  de- 
partment yesterday,  there  were  only  two  for  single 
houses,  and  they  had  but  three  families  on  the  floor. 

^  Report  of  Tenement  House  Commission  of  1900. 


"DRUV   INTO   DECENCY"  149 

So  it  seems  as  if  the  blight  of  the  twenty-five- 
foot  lot  were  really  wiped  out  with  the  double- 
decker.  And  no  one  is  hurt.  The  speculative 
builder  weeps  —  for  the  poor,  he  says.  He  will 
build  no  more,  he  avers,  and  rents  will  go  up,  so 
they  will  have  to  sleep  on  the  streets.  But  I  notice 
the  plans  I  spoke  of  call  for  an  investment  of  three 
millions  of  dollars,  and  that  they  are  working  over- 
time at  the  department  to  pass  on  them,  so  great 
is  the  rush.  Belike,  then,  they  are  crocodile  tears. 
Anyway,  let  him  weep.  He  has  laughed  long 
enough. 

As  for  the  rents,  he  will  put  them  as  high  as  he 
can,  no  doubt.  They  were  too  high  always,  for 
what  they  bought.  In  the  case  of  the  builder  the 
state  can  add  force  to  persuasion,  and  so  urge  him 
along  the  path  of  righteousness.  When  it  comes 
to  the  rent  collector  the  case  is  different.  It  may 
yet  be  necessary  for  the  municipality  to  enter  the 
field  as  a  competing  landlord  on  the  five-per-cent 
basis;  but  I  would  rather  we,  as  a  community, 
learned  first  a  little  more  of  the  art  of  governing 
ourselves  without  scandal.  With  Tammany  liable 
to  turn  up  at  any  moment  —  no,  no!  Political 
tenements  might  yet  add  a  chapter  to  the  story 
of  our  disgrace  to  make  men  weep.  I  have  not  for- 
gotten the  use  Tammany  made  of  the  people's  baths 
erected  in  the  Hamilton  Fish  Park  on  the  East  Side 


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Plan  of  a  Typical  Floor  In  Class  First  of  the  Competition  in  the  C. 
Plans  of  Model  Tenements. 


0.  S. 


152  THE    BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

—  the  Ham-fish,  locally.  They  were  shut  from  the 
day  they  were  opened,  I  came  near  saying ;  I  mean 
from  the  day  they  should  have  been  opened;  and 
two  stalwart  watchmen  drew  salaries  for  sitting  in 
the  door  to  keep  the  people  out.  That  was  a  per- 
fectly characteristic  use  of  the  people's  money,  and 
is  not  lightly  to  be  invited  back.  Rather  wait 
awhile  yet,  and  see  what  our  bridges  and  real  rapid 
transit,  and  the  "  philanthropy  and  five  per  cent " 
plan,  will  do  for  us.  When  that  latter  has  been 
grasped  so  by  the  tenant  that  a  little  extra  brass 
and  plate-glass  does  not  tempt  him  over  into  the 
enemy's  camp,  the  usurious  rents  may  yet  follow 
the  double-decker,  as  they  have  clung  to  it  in  the 
past. 

But  if  the  city  may  not  be  the  landlord  of  tene- 
ments, I  have  often  thought  it  might  with  advan- 
tage manage  them  to  the  extent  of  building  them 
to  contain  so  many  tenements  on  basis  of  air  space, 
and  no  more.  The  thing  was  proposed  when 
the  tenement  house  question  first  came  up  for  dis- 
cussion, but  was  dropped  then.  The  last  Tenement 
House  Commission  considered  it  carefully,  but  de- 
cided to  wait  and  see  first  how  the  new  department 
worked.  The  whole  expense  of  that,  with  its  nearly 
two  hundred  inspectors,  might  easily  be  borne  by 
the  collection  of  a  license  fee  so  small  that  even  the 
tenement    house     landlord    could     not    complain. 


"DRUV  INTO   DECENCY"  153 

Lodging  houses  are  licensed,  and  workshops  in  the 
tenements  likewise,  to  secure  efficient  control  of 
them.  If  that  is  not  secured  in  the  case  of  the 
workshops,  as  it  is  not,  it  is  no  fault  of  the  plan, 
but  of  the  working  out  of  it.  I  do  not  expect  the 
licensing  of  tenements  to  dispose  of  all  the  evils  in 
them.  No  law  or  system  will  ever  do  that.  But  it 
ought  to  make  it  easier  to  get  the  grip  on  them  that 
has  been  wanting  heretofore,  to  our  hurt. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE    MILLS    HOUSES 

Sitting  by  my  window  the  other  day,  I  saw  a  boy 
steering  across  the  street  for  my  little  lad,  who  was 
laying  out  a  base-ball  diamond  on  the  lawn.  It 
seems  that  he  knew  him  from  school. 

"  Hey,"  he  said,  as  he  rounded  to  at  the  gate, 
"  we've  got  yer  dad's  book  to  home ;  yer  father  was 
a  bum  onct." 

Proof  was  immediately  forthcoming  that  whatever 
the  father  might  have  been,  his  son  was  able  to  up- 
hold the  family  pride,  and  I  had  my  revenge.  Some 
day  soon  now  my  boy  will  read  his  father's  story  ^ 
himself,  and  I  hope  will  not  be  ashamed.  They 
read  it  in  their  way  in  the  other  boy's  house,  and 
got  out  of  it  that  I  was  a  "  bum  "  because  once  I 
was  on  the  level  of  the  Bowery  lodging  house. 
But  if  he  does  not  stay  there,  a  man  need  not  be 
that;  and  for  that  matter,  there  are  plenty  who 
do  whom  it  would  be  a  gross  injury  to  call  by  such 
a  name.  There  are  lonely  men,  who,  with  no  kin  of 
their  own,  prefer  even   such  society  as  the  cheap 

^"The  Making  of  an  American." 
154 


THE   MILLS   HOUSES 


155 


A  Seven-cent  Lodging  House  in  the  Bowery. 

lodging  house  has  to  offer  to  the  desolation  of  the 
tenement ;  and  there  are  plenty  of  young  lads  from 
the  country,  who,  waiting  in  the  big  city  for  the 
something  that  is  sure  to  turn  up  and  open  their 
road  to  fortune,  get  stranded  there.  Beginning, 
perhaps,  at  the  thirty-cent  house,  they  go  down, 
down,  till  they  strike  the  fifteen  or  the  ten  cent 
house,  with  the  dirty  sheets  and  the  ready  club  in 
the  watchman's  hand.  And  then  some  day,  when 
the  last  penny  is  gone,  and  the  question  where  the 
next  meal  is  going  to  come  from  looms  larger  than 
the  Philippine  policy  of  the  nation,  a  heavy-browed 


156  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

man  taps  one  on  the  shoulder  with  an  offer  of  an 
easy  job  —  easy  and  straight  enough  in  the  mood 
the  fellow  is  in  just  then ;  for  does  not  the  world 
owe  him  a  living?  It  is  one  of  the  devil's  most 
tempting  baits  to  a  starving  man  that  makes  him 
feel  quite  a  moral  hero  in  taking  that  of  which  his 
more  successful  neighbor  has  deprived  him.  The 
heavy-browed  fellow  is  a  thief,  who  is  out  recruiting 
his  band  which  the  police  have  broken  up  in  this  or 
some  other  city.  By  and  by  his  victim  will  have 
time,  behind  prison  bars,  to  make  out  the  lie  that 
caught  him.  The  world  owes  no  man  a  living  ex- 
cept as  the  price  of  honest  work.  But,  wrathful  and 
hungry,  he  walks  easily  into  the  trap. 

That  was  what  Inspector  Byrnes  meant  by  calling 
the  cheap  lodging  houses  nurseries  of  crime.  I 
have  personally,  as  a  police  reporter,  helped  trace 
many  foul  crimes  to  these  houses  where  they  were 
hatched.  They  were  all  robberies  to  begin  with,  but 
three  of  them  ended  in  murder.  Most  of  my  read- 
ers will  remember  at  least  one  of  them,  the  Lyman 
S.  Weeks  murder  in  Brooklyn,  a  thoroughly  char- 
acteristic case  of  the  kind  I  have  described.  A  case 
they  never  heard  of,  because  it  was  nipped  in  the 
bud,  was  typical  of  another  kind.  Two  young 
Western  fellows  had  come  on,  on  purpose  to  hold 
up  New  York,  and  were  practising  in  their  lodging, 
but  not,  it  seems,  with  much  success,  for  the  police 


THE   MILLS   HOUSES 


157 


pulled  them  in  at  their  second  or  third  job.  When 
searched,  a  tintype,  evidently  of  Bowery  make,  was 
found  in  the  pocket  of  one,  showing  them  at  re- 
hearsal. They  grinned  when  asked  about  it.  "  We 
done  a  fellow  up  easy  that  way,"  they  said,  "  and 
we'd  a  mind  to  see 
how  it  looked."  They 
were  lucky  in  being 
caught  so  soon.  A 
little  while,  and  the 
gallows  would  have 
claimed  them,  on  the 
road  they  were  trav- 
elling. 

I  mention  this  to 
show  the  kind  of 
problem  we  have  in 
our  Bowery  lodging 
houses,  with  their 
army  of  fifteen  or  six- 
teen   thousand    lodg-        They  had  a  Mind  to  see  how  it  looked. 

ers,  hanging  on  to  the  ragged  edge  most  of  them, 
and  I  have  only  skimmed  the  surface  of  it  at  that. 
The  political  boss  searches  the  depths  of  it  about 
election  time  when  he  needs  votes ;  the  sanitary 
policeman  in  times  of  epidemic,  when  small-pox  or 
typhus  fever  threatens.  All  other  efforts  to  reach  it 
had  proved  unavailing  when  D.  O.  Mills,  the  banker, 


^Hr  -^W 

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jfe^i^ 

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^T^B  SCr!>>  i^H 

tl>^ 

IJJil^nt^sMflj^^P 

C| 

Hn 

B 

n 

158  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

built  his  two  "  Mills  Houses,"  No.  i  in  Bleecker 
Street  for  the  West  Side  and  No.  2  in  Rivington 
Street  for  the  homeless  of  the  East  Side.  They  did 
reach  it,  by  a  cut  'cross  lots  as  it  were,  by  putting 
the  whole  thing  on  a  neighborly  basis.  It  had  been 
just  business  before,  and,  like  the  keeping  of  slum 
tenements,  a  mighty  well-paying  one.  The  men 
who  ran  it  might  well  have  given  more,  but  they 
didn't.  It  was  the  same  thing  over  again :  let  the 
lodgers  shift  as  they  could ;  their  landlord  lived  in 
style  on  the  avenue.  What  were  they  to  him  except 
the  means  of  keeping  it  up  ? 

The  Mills  Houses  do  not  neglect  the  business 
end.  Indeed,  they  insist  upon  it.  "  No  patron," 
said  Mr.  Mills  at  the  opening,  "  will  receive  more 
than  he  pays  for,  unless  it  be  my  hearty  good-will 
and  good  wishes.  It  is  true  that  I  have  devoted 
thought,  labor,  and  capital  to  a  very  earnest  effort 
to  help  him,  but  only  by  enabling  him  to  help  him- 
self. In  doing  the  work  on  so  large  a  scale,  and  in 
securing  the  utmost  economies  in  purchases  and  in 
administration,  I  hope  to  give  him  a  larger  equiva- 
lent for  his  money  than  has  hitherto  been  possible. 
He  can,  without  scruple,  permit  me  to  offer  him 
this  advantage ;  but  he  will  think  better  of  himself, 
and  will  be  a  more  self-reliant,  manly  man  and  a 
better  citizen,  if  he  knows  that  he  is  honestly  pay- 
ing for  what  he  gets."     That  had  the  right  ring  to 


THE   MILLS   HOUSES 


159 


it,  and  from  the  beginning  so  have  the  houses  had. 
Big,  handsome  hotels,  as  fine  as  any,  with  wide  mar- 
ble stairs  for  the  dark  hole  through  which  one  dived 
into  the  man-traps  of  old.  Mr.  Mills  gave  to  the 
lodger  a  man's  chance,  if  he  is  poor.  His  room  is 
small,  but  the  bed  for  which  he  pays  twenty  cents  is 
clean  and  good.  Indeed,  it  is  said  that  the  spring  in 
it  was  made  by  the 
man  who  made  the 
springs  for  the  five- 
dollar  beds  in  the 
Waldorf-Astoria, 
and  that  it  is  just 
the  same.  How- 
ever that  may  be, 
it  is  comfortable 
enough,  as  com- 
fortable as  any  need 
have  it  in  Bleecker 
Street  or  on  Fifth 
Avenue.  The  guest 
at  the  Mills  House 

has     all     the     privi-  Doorway  of  the  Mills  House,   No.    1 

leges  the  other  has,  except  to  while  away  the  sunlit 
hours  in  his  bed.  Then  he  is  expected  to  be  out 
hustling.  At  nine  o'clock  his  door  is  barred  against 
him,  and  is  not  again  opened  until  five  in  the  after- 
noon.    But  there  are  smoking  and  writing  rooms, 


l60  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

and  a  library  for  his  use;  games  if  he  chooses,  baths 
when  he  feels  like  taking  one,  and  a  laundry  where 
he  may  wash  his  own  clothes  if  he  has  to  save  the 
pennies,  as  he  likely  has  to.  It  is  a  good  place  to 
do  it,  too,  for  he  can  sleep  comfortably  and  have 
two  square  meals  a  day  for  fifty  cents  all  told. 
There  is  a  restaurant  in  the  basement  where  his 
dinner  costs  him  fifteen  cents. 

I  will  not  say  that  the  dinner  is  as  savory  as  the 
one  they  would  serve  at  Delmonico's,  but  he  comes 
to  it  probably  with  a  good  deal  better  appetite,  and 
that  is  the  thing  after  all.  I  ate  with  him  once,  and 
here  is  the  bill  of  fare  of  that  day.     I  kept  it. 

Soup  One  Meat  Dish  Two  Vegetables 

Dessert  Tea,  Coffee  or  Milk 

15  cents 


SOUPS 

Consorani6  with  Noodles  Pure'e  of  Tomatoes 

HOT  MEATS 

Roast  Turkey,  Cranberry  Sauce 

Roast  Beef,  Dish  Gravy 

Fricasseed  Spring  Lamb  with  Mushrooms 

COLD  MEAT 

Boiled  Fresh  Beef  Tongue 

FISH 

Fried  Smelts,  Tartare  Sauce 
Boiled  Cod,  Egg  Sauce 

VEGETABLES 

Boiled  Sweet  Potatoes     Mashed  Potatoes 

Cauliflower,  Hollandaise  Sauce      Fried  Egg  Plant 

Celery  Salad 


THE  MILLS   HOUSES  l6l 

DESSERT 

Plum  Pudding,  Hard  or  Lemon  Sauce 

Pumpkin  Pie         Baked  Apples 

Tea  Coffee  Milk 

I  will  own  the  turkey  seemed  to  me  to  taste  of 
codfish  and  the  codfish  of  turkey,  as  if  it  were  all 
cooked  in  one  huge  dish ;  but  there  was  enough  of 
it,  and  it  was  otherwise  good.  And  the  fault  may 
have  been  with  my  palate,  probably  was.  It  is 
getting  to  be  quite  the  thing  for  clubs  with  a  social 
inquiry  turn  to  meet  and  take  their  dinners  at  Mills 
House  No.  I  in  Bleecker  Street,  so  it  must  be  all 
right.     Perhaps  I  struck  the  cook's  off  day.^ 

No.  I  is  the  largest,  with  rooms  for  1554  guests, 
and  usually  there  are  1554  there.  No.  2  in  Riving- 
ton  Street  has  600  rooms.  Together  they  are  capa- 
ble of  housing  about  twelve  per  cent  of  all  who 
nightly  seek  the  cheap  lodging  houses,  not  counting 
the  Raines  law  hotels,  which  are  chiefly  used  for 
purposes  of  assignation.  The  Bowery  houses  have 
felt  the  competition,  and  have  been  compelled  to 
make  concessions  that  profit  the  lodger.  The 
greatest  gain  to  him  is  the  chance  of  getting  away 
from  there.     At  the  Mills  Houses  he  is  reasonably 

^  Since  reading  this  proof  I  have  been  over  and  verified  my  diagno- 
sis. The  trouble  must  have  been  with  me.  The  soup  and  the  mutton 
and  the  pie  had  each  its  proper  savor,  and  the  cook  is  all  right.  So  is 
the  lunch.  There  is  no  fifty-cent  lunch  in  the  city  that  I  know  of  which 
is  better. 


l62  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

safe  from  the  hold-up  man  and  the  recruiting  thief. 
Though  the  latter  often  gives  the  police  the 
Bleecker  Street  house  as  his  permanent  address  on 
the  principle  that  makes  the  impecunious  seeker  of 
a  job  conduct  his  correspondence  from  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Hotel  or  the  Savoy,  he  is  rarely  found 
there,  and  if  found,  is  not  kept  long.  If  he  does 
get  in,  he  is  quiet  and  harmless  because  he  has  to 
be.  Crooks  in  action  seek  crooked  houses  kept 
by  crooked  men,  and  they  find  them  along  the 
Bowery  more  readily  than  anywhere.  There  are 
the  shows  and  the  resorts  that  draw  the  young  lads, 
who,  away  from  home,  are  all  too  easily  drawn,  to 
their  undoing.  The  getting  them  out  of  their  lati- 
tude is  the  greatest  gain,  and  this  service  the  Mills 
House  performs,  to  a  salutary  extent.  The  more 
readily  since  its  fame  has  gone  abroad,  and 
the  Mills  House  has  become  a  type.  There  is 
scarcely  a  mail  now  that  does  not  bring  me  word 
from  some  city  in  the  West  or  East  that  a  Mills 
House  has  been  started  there  in  the  effort  to 
grapple  with  the  problem  of  the  floating  population. 
The  fear  that  their  reputation  may  help  increase 
that  problem  by  drawing  greater  crowds  from  the 
country  is  rather  strained,  it  seems  to  me.  The 
objection  would  lie  against  free  shelters,  but  hardly 
against  a  business  concern  that  simply  strives  to  give 
the  poor  lodger  his  money's  worth.     As  to  him,  the 


u 


THE  MILLS   HOUSES  165 

everlasting  pessimist  predicted,  when  the  Mills 
Houses  were  opened,  that  they  would  have  to 
"  make  bathing  compulsory."  The  lodger  has  given 
him  the  lie ;  the  average  has  been  over  400  bathers 
per  day,  —  one  in  five,  —  and  the  record  has  passed 
1000.  No  doubt  soap  may  be  cheap  and  salvation 
dear,  but  on  the  other  hand  cleanliness  does  and 
must  ever  begin  godliness  when  fighting  the  slum, 
and  no  one  who  ever  took  a  look  into  one  of  the  old- 
style  lodging  houses  will  doubt  that  we  are  better 
off  by  so  much.  The  Mills  houses  have  paid  four, 
even  five,  per  cent  on  their  owner's  investment  of  a 
million  and  a  half.  It  follows  that  the  business  will 
attract  capital,  which  means  that  there  will  be  an  end 
of  the  old  nuisance.  Beyond  this,  they  have  borne 
and  will  bear  increasingly  a  hand  in  settling  with 
the  saloon  with  which  they  compete  on  its  strong 
ground  —  that  of  social  fellowship.  It  has  no  rival 
in  the  Bowery  house  or  in  the  boarding-house  back 
bedroom.  Every  philanthropic  effort  to  fight  it  on 
that  ground  has  drawn  renewed  courage  and  hope 
from  Mr.  Mills's  work  and  success. 

Many  years  ago  a  rich  merchant  planned  to  do 
for  his  working  women  the  thing  Mr.  Mills  has 
done  for  lonely  men.  Out  on  Long  Island  he  built 
a  town  for  his  clerks  that  was  to  be  their  very  own. 
But  it  came  out  differently.  The  Long  Island 
town  became  a   cathedral    city  and    the   home   of 


l66  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

wealth  and  fashion ;  his  woman's  boarding  house  a 
great  public  hotel  far  beyond  the  reach  of  those  he 
sought  to  benefit.  The  passing  years  saw  his  great 
house,  its  wealth,  its  very  name,  vanish  as  if  they 
had  never  been,  and  even  his  bones  denied  by 
ghoulish  thieves  rest  in  the  grave.  There  is  no 
more  pathetic  page  in  the  history  of  our  city  than 
that  which  records  the  eclipse  of  the  house  of 
Alexander  T.  Stewart,  merchant  prince.  I  like  to 
think  of  the  banker's  successful  philanthropy  as  a 
kind  of  justice  to  the  memory  of  the  dead  merchant, 
more  eloquent  than  marble  and  brass  in  the  empty 
crypt.  Mills  House  No.  i  stands  upon  the  site  of 
Mr.  Stewart's  old  home,  where  he  dreamed  his 
barren  dream  of  benevolence  to  his  kind. 

His  work  lies  undone  yet.  While  I  am  writing 
this,  they  are  putting  the  roof  on  a  great  structure 
in  East  Twenty-ninth  Street  that  is  to  be  the 
"  Woman's  Hotel "  of  the  city  and  bear  the  name  of 
Martha  Washington.  It  is  intended  for  business 
and  professional  women  who  can  pay  from  seven 
or  eight  dollars  a  week  up  to  almost  anything  for 
their  board  and  lodging,  and  it  is  expected  to  fill  so 
great  a  need  as  to  be  commercially  profitable  at  once. 
That  will  be  well,  and  we  shall  all  be  glad.  But 
who  will  build  the  Mills  House  for  lonely  girls  and 
women  who  cannot  pay  seven  or  eight  dollars  a 
week,  and  would  not  go  to  the  Woman's  Hotel  if  they 


THE   MILLS   HOUSES  167 

could  ?  The  social  cleft  between  Madison  Avenue 
and  Bleecker  Street  is  too  wide  to  be  bridged  by  the 
best  intentions  of  a  hotel  company.  I  doubt  if  they 
would  know  where  to  go  in  that  strange  uptown 
country.  When  as  an  immigrant  I  paid  two  dollars 
a  day  for  board  that  was  not  worth  fifty  cents,  in  a 
Greenwich  Street  house,  I  might  have  lodged  in  com- 
fort in  a  Broadway  hotel  for  less  money,  had  I  only 
known  where.  There  are  hosts  of  half -starved  women 
and  girls  living  in  cheerless  back  rooms,  —  or,  rather, 
they  do  not  live,  they  exist  on  weak  coffee  or  tea, 
laying  up  an  evil  day  for  the  generation  of  which 
they  are  to  be  the  mothers, — to  whom  such  a  house 
would  be  home,  freedom,  and  life.  Ask  any  working 
girls'  vacation  society  whence  the  need  of  their 
labor  early  and  late,  if  not  to  put  a  little  life  and 
vigor  into  those  ill-nourished  bodies.  Ask  the 
priest,  or  any  one  who  knows  the  temptations  of 
youth,  how  much  that  bald  and  dreary  life  of  theirs 
counts  for  in  the  fight  he  has  on  hand.  Who 
will  build  the  working  women's  hotel  somewhere 
between  Stewart's  old  store  and  Twenty-third 
Street,  east  of  Broadway,  that  shall  give  them  their 
sadly  needed  chance  ?  And  while  about  it,  let  him 
add  a  wing,  or  build  a  separate  house,  such  as  they 
have  in  Glasgow,  for  widows  with  little  children,  that 
shall  answer  another  of  our  perplexing  problems,  — 
a   house,   this    latter,    with    nursery,    kindergarten. 


i68 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


and  laundry,  where  the  mother  might  know  her 
child  safe  while  she  provided  for  it  with  her  work. 
Who  will  be  the  D.  O.  Mills  of  these  helpless  ones  ? 


Lodging  Room  in  the  Leonard  Street  Police  Station. 

Or  is  there  but  one  Mills  ?  I  have  heard  it  said 
that  he  has  been  waiting,  asking  the  same  question. 
Let  him  wait  no  longer,  then,  if  he  would  put  the 
finishing  touch  to  a  practical  philanthropy  that  will 
rank  in  days  to  come  with  the  great  benefactions  to 
mankind. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  need  of  bracing  up  the 
home,  or  finding  something  to  replace  it  as  nearly 
like  it  as  could  be,  where  that  had  to  be  done, 
because  the  home  is  the  key  to  good  citizenship. 


THE   MILLS   HOUSES 


169 


Unhappily  for  the  great  cities,  there  exists  in  them 
all  a  class  that  has  lost  the  key  or  thrown  it  away. 
For  this  class,  New  York,  until  three  years  ago,  had 
never  made  any  provision.  The  police  station 
lodging  rooms,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  were  not  to 
be  dignified  by  the  term.  These  vile  dens,  in 
which  the  homeless  of  our  great  city  were  herded, 
without  pretence  of  bed,  of  bath,  of  food,  on  rude 


Women's  Lodging  Room  in  Eldridge  Street  Police  Station. 

planks,  were  the  most  pernicious  parody  on  mu- 
nicipal charity,  I  verily  believe,  that  any  civilized 
community  had  ever  devised.  To  escape  physical 
and    moral    contagion    in    these    crowds    seemed 


170  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

humanly  impossible.  Of  the  innocently  homeless 
lad  they  made  a  tramp  by  the  shortest  cut.  To 
the  old  tramp  they  were  indeed  ideal  provision,  for 
they  enabled  him  to  spend  for  drink  every  cent  he 
could  beg  or  steal.  With  the  stale  beer  dive,  the 
free  lunch  counter,  and  the  police  lodging  room  at 
hand,  his  cup  of  happiness  was  full.  There  came 
an  evil  day,  when  the  stale  beer  dive  shut  its  doors 
and  the  free  lunch  disappeared  for  a  season.  The 
beer  pump,  which  drained  the  kegs  dry  and  robbed 
the  stale  beer  collector  of  his  ware,  drove  the  dives 
out  of  business;  the  Raines  law  forbade  the  free 
lunch.  JuSt  at  this  time  Theodore  Roosevelt  shut 
the  police  lodging  rooms,  and  the  tramp  was 
literally  left  out  in  the  cold,  cursing  reform  and  its 
fruits.  It  was  the  climax  of  a  campaign  a  genera- 
tion old,  during  which  no  one  had  ever  been  found 
to  say  a  word  in  defence  of  these  lodging  rooms; 
yet  nothing  had  availed  to  close  them. 

The  city  took  lodgers  on  an  old  barge  in  the 
East  River,  that  winter  (1896),  and  kept  a  register 
of  them.  We  learned  something  from  that.  Of 
nearly  10,000  lodgers,  one-half  were  under  thirty 
years  old  and  in  good  health  —  fat,  in  fact.  The 
doctors  reported  them  "well  nourished."  Among 
100  whom  I  watched  taking  their  compulsory  bath, 
one  night,  only  two  were  skinny;  the  others  were 
stout,  well-fed  men,  abundantly  able  to  do  a  man's 


THE   MILLS   HOUSES 


171 


work.  They  all  insisted  that  they  were  willing, 
too;  but  the  moment  inquiries  began  with  a  view 
of  setting  such  to  work  as  really  wanted  it,  and 
sending   the  rest  to  the    island  as  vagrants,   their 


A  "Scrub"  and  her  Bed  —  the  Plank. 

number  fell  off  most  remarkably.  From  between 
400  and  500  who  had  crowded  the  barge  and  the 
pier  sheds,  the  attendance  fell  on  March  16,  the 
day  the  investigation  began,  to  330,  on  the  second 
day  to  294,  and  on  the  third  day  to  171 ;  by  March 


1/2  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

21  it  had  been  cut  down  to  121.  The  problem  of 
the  honestly  homeless,  who  were  without  means  to 
pay  for  a  bed  even  in  a  ten-cent  lodging  house,  and 
who  had  a  claim  upon  the  city  by  virtue  of  resi- 
dence in  it,  had  dwindled  to  surprisingly  small  pro- 
portions. Of  9386  lodgers,  3622  were  shown  to 
have  been  here  less  than  sixty  days,  and  968  more 
not  a  year.  The  old  mistake,  that  there  is  always 
a  given  amount  of  absolutely  homeless  destitution 
in  a  city,  and  that  it  is  to  be  measured  by  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  apply  for  free  lodging,  had  been 
reduced  to  a  demonstration.  The  truth  is  that 
the  opportunity  furnished  by  the  triple  alliance  of 
stale  beer,  free  lunch,  and  free  lodging  at  the  police 
station  was  the  open  door  to  permanent  and  hope- 
less vagrancy.  Men,  a  good  bishop  said,  will  do 
what  you  pay  them  to  do :  if  to  work,  they  will 
work;  if  you  make  it  pay  them  to  beg,  they  will 
beg;  if  to  maim  helpless  children  makes,  begging 
pay  better,  they  will  do  that  too.  See  what  it  is  to 
encourage  laziness  in  man  whose  salvation  is  work. 
A  city  lodging  house  was  established,  with  decent 
beds,  baths,  and  breakfast,  and  a  system  of  investi- 
gation of  the  lodger's  claim  that  is  yet  to  be  devel- 
oped to  useful  proportions.  The  link  that  is  missing 
is  a  farm  school,  for  the  training  of  young  vagrants 
to  habits  of  industry  and  steady  work,  as  the  alter- 
native of  the  workhouse.     Efforts  to  forge  this  link 


THE   MILLS    HOUSES  173 

have  failed  so  far,  but  in  the  good  time  that  is  com- 
ing, when  we  shall  have  learned  the  lesson  that  the 
unkindest  thing  that  can  be  done  to  a  young  tramp 
is  to  let  him  go  on  tramping,  and  when  magistrates 
shall  blush  to  discharge  him  on  the  plea  that  "  it  is 
no    crime   to   be  poor   in    this    country,"  they   will 


What  a  Search  of  the  Lodgers  brought  forth. 

succeed,  and  the  tramp  also  we  shall  then  have 
"druv  into  decency."  When  I  look  back  now  to 
the  time,  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago,  when,  night  after 
night,  with  every  police  station  filled,  I  found  the 
old  tenements  in  the  "  Bend  "  jammed  with  a  reek- 
ing mass  of  human  wrecks  that  huddled  in  hall 
and  yard,  and  slept,  crouching  in  shivering  files,  all 
the  way  up  the  stairs  to  the  attic,  it  does  seem  as  if 


174  THE   BATTLE  WITH  THE   SLUM 

we  had  come  a  good  way,  and  as  if  all  the  turmoil 
and  the  bruises  and  the  fighting  had  been  worth 
while.  New  York  is  no  longer,  at  least  when 
Tammany  is  out,  a  tramp's  town.  And  that  is  so 
much  gained,  to  us  and  to  the  tramp. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PIETRO    AND    THE   JEW 

We  have  seen  that  the  problem  of  the  tenement  is 
to  make  homes  for  the  people,  out  of  it  if  we  can,  in 
it  if  we  must.  Now  about  the  tenant.  How  much 
of  a  problem  is  he  ?  And  how  are  we  to  go  about 
solving  it? 

The  government  "  slum  inquiry,  "  of  which  I  have 
spoken  before,  gave  us  some  facts  about  him.  In 
New  York  it  found  62.58  per  cent  of  the  population 
of  the  slum  to  be  foreign-born,  whereas  for  the  whole 
city  the  percentage  of  foreigners  was  only  43.23. 
While  the  proportion  of  illiteracy  in  all  was  only  as 
7.69  to  100,  in  the  slum  it  was  46.65  per  cent.  That 
with  nearly  twice  as  many  saloons  to  a  given  number 
there  should  be  three  times  as  many  arrests  in  the 
slum  as  in  the  city  at  large  need  not  be  attributed 
to  nationality,  except  indirectly  in  its  possible  respon- 
sibility for  the  saloons.  I  say  "  possible  "  advisably. 
Anybody,  I  should  think,  whose  misfortune  it  is  to 
live  in  the  slum  might  be  expected  to  find  in  the 
saloon  a  refuge.  I  shall  not  quarrel  with  the  other 
view  of  it.    I  am  merely  stating  a  personal  impression. 

17s 


176  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

The  fact  that  concerns  us  here  is  the  great  pro- 
portion of  the  foreign-born.  Though  the  inquiry 
covered  only  a  small  section  of  a  tenement  district, 
the  result  may  be  accepted  as  typical. 

We  shall  not,  then,  have  to  do  with  an  American 
element  in  discussing  this  tenant,  for  even  of  the 
"  natives "  in  the  census,  by  far  the  largest  share 
is  made  up  of  the  children  of  the  immigrant.  Indeed, 
in  New  York  only  4.77  per  cent  of  the  slum  popula- 
tion canvassed  were  shown  to  be  of  native  parentage. 
The  parents  of  95.23  per  cent  had  come  over  the  sea, 
to  better  themselves,  it  may  be  assumed.  Let  us  see 
what  they  brought  us,  and  what  we  have  given  them 
in  return. 

The  Italians  were  in  the  majority  where  this  cen- 
sus-taker went.  They  were  from  the  south  of  Italy, 
avowedly  the  worst  of  the  Italian  immigration,  which 
in  the  eleven  years  from  1891  to  1902  gave  us  nearly 
a  million  of  Victor  Emmanuel's  subjects.  The  exact 
number  of  Italian  immigrants,  as  registered  by  the 
Emigration  Bureau,  from  July  i,  189 1,  to  June  i, 
1902,  a  month  short  of  eleven  years,  was  944,  345. 
And  they  come  in  greater  numbers  every  year.  In 
1898,  58,613  came  over,  of  whom  36,086  gave  New 
York  as  their  destination.  In  1901  the  Italian  im- 
migrants numbered  138,608,  and  as  I  write  ship- 
loads with  thousands  upon  thousands  are  afloat, 
bound  for  our  shores.     Yet  there  is  a  gleam  of  prom- 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW 


177 


Ise  in  the  showing  of  last  year,  for  of  the  138,608, 
those  who  came  to  stay  in  New  York  numbered  only 
67,231.  Enough  surely,  but  they  were  after  all  only 
one-half  of  the  whole  against  two-thirds  in  1898.  If 
this  means  that  they  came  to  join  friends  elsewhere 
in  the  country  —  that  other  centres  of  immigration 


Bedroom  in  the  New  City  Lodging  House. 

have  been  set  up  —  well  and  good.  There  is  room 
for  them  there.  Going  out  to  break  ground,  they 
give  us  more  than  they  get.  The  peril  lies  in  their 
being  cooped  up  in  the  city. 

Of  last  year's  intake  116,070  came  from  southern 
Italy,  where  they  wash  less,  and  also  plot  less  against 
the  peace  of  mankind,  than  they  do  in  the  north. 
Quite  a  lot  were  from  Sicily,  the  island  of  the  absen- 


178  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

tee  landlord,  where  peasants  die  of  hunger.  I  make 
no  apology  for  quoting  here  the  statement  of  an 
Italian  officer,  on  duty  in  the  island,  to  a  staff  cor- 
respondent of  the  Tribuna  of  Rome,  a  paper  not  to 
be  suspected  of  disloyalty  to  United  Italy.  I  take  it 
from  the  Evening  Post : 

"  In  the  month  of  July  I  stopped  on  a  march  by 
a  threshing-floor  where  they  were  measuring  grain. 
When  the  shares  had  been  divided,  the  one  who 
had  cultivated  the  land  received  a  single  tumolo 
(less  than  a  half  bushel).  The  peasant,  leaning  on 
his  spade,  looked  at  his  share  as  if  stunned.  His 
wife  and  their  five  children  were  standing  by. 
From  the  painful  toil  of  a  year  this  was  what  was 
left  to  him  with  which  to  feed  his  family.  The 
tears  rolled  silently  down  his  cheeks." 

These  things  occasionally  help  one  to  under- 
stand. Over  against  this  picture  there  arises  in  my 
memory  one  from  the  barge  office,  where  I  had 
gone  to  see  an  Italian  steamer  come  in.  A  family 
sat  apart,  ordered  to  wait  by  the  inspecting  officer ; 
in  the  group  was  an  old  man,  worn  and  wrinkled, 
who  viewed  the  turmoil  with  the  calmness  of  one 
having  no  share  in  it.  The  younger  members 
formed  a  sort  of  bulwark  around  him. 

"  Your  father  is  too  old  to  come  in,"  said  the 
official. 

Two  young  women  and  a  boy  of  sixteen  rose  to 


^  •■^  V 


1H0MA&  ■poCA&.T^ 


"Are  we  not  young  enough  to  work  for  him? 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  l8l 

their  feet  at  once.  "  Are  not  we  young  enough  to 
work  for  him  ? "  they  said.  The  boy  showed  his 
strong  arms. 

It  is  charged  against  this  Italian  immigrant  that 
he  is  dirty,  and  the  charge  is  true.  He  lives  in  the 
darkest  of  slums,  and  pays  rent  that  ought  to  hire 
a  decent  flat.  To  wash,  water  is  needed ;  and  we 
have  a  law  which  orders  tenement  landlords  to  put 
it  on  every  floor,  so  that  their  tenants  may  have 
the  chance.  And  it  is  not  yet  half  a  score  years 
since  one  of  the  biggest  tenement-house  landlords 
in  the  city,  the  wealthiest  church  corporation  in 
the  land,  attacked  the  constitutionality  of  this  stat- 
ute rather  than  pay  two  or  three  hundred  dollars 
for  putting  water  into  two  old  buildings,  as  the 
Board  of  Health  had  ordered,  and  so  came  near 
upsetting  the  whole  structure  of  tenement-house 
law  upon  which  our  safety  depends.  Talk  about 
the  Church  and  the  people ;  that  one  thing  did  more 
to  drive  them  apart  than  all  the  ranting  of  atheists 
that  ever  were.  Yesterday  a  magazine  came  in  the 
mail  in  which  I  read :  '*  On  a  certain  street  corner 
in  Chicago  stands  a  handsome  church  where  hun- 
dreds of  worshippers  gather  every  Sabbath  morning 
for  prayer  and  praise.  Just  a  little  way  off,  almost 
within  the  shadow  of  its  spire,  lived,  or  rather 
herded,  in  a  dark,  damp  basement,  a  family  of  eight 
— father,  mother,  and   six   children.     For   all   the 


1 82  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

influence  that  the  songs  or  the  sermons  or  the 
prayers  had  upon  them  they  might  have  Hved  there 
and  died  Hke  rats  in  a  hole.  They  did  not  believe 
in  God,  nor  heaven,  nor  hell,  other  than  that  in 
which  they  lived.  Church-goers  were  to  them  a 
lot  of  canting  hypocrites  who  wrapped  their  com- 
fortable robes  about  them  and  cared  nothing  for 
the  sufferings  of  others.  Hunger  and  misery  were 
daily  realities." 

No,  it  was  not  a  yellow  newspaper.  It  was  a 
religious  publication,  and  it  told  how  a  warm 
human  love  did  find  them  out,  and  showed  them 
what  the  Church  had  failed  to  do^ — what  God's 
love  is  like.  And  I  am  not  attacking  the  Church 
either.  God  forbid !  I  would  help,  not  hinder  it ; 
for  I,  too,  am  a  churchman.  Only  —  well,  let  it  pass. 
It  will  not  happen  again.  That  same  year  I  read 
in  my  paper  the  reply  of  the  priest  at  the  Pro- 
Cathedral  in  Stanton  Street  to  a  crank  who  scoffed 
at  the  kind  of  "  religion  "  they  had  there :  kinder- 
gartens, nurseries,  boys'  and  girls'  clubs,  and 
mothers'  meetings.  "  Yes,"  he  wrote,  "  that  is  our 
religion.  We  believe  that  a  love  of  God  that 
doesn't  forthwith  run  to  manifest  itself  in  some 
loving  deed  to  His  children  is  not  worth  having." 
That  is  how  I  came  to  be  a  churchman  in  Bishop 
Potter's  camp.     I  "  joined  "  then  and  there. 

Our  Italian  is  ignorant,  it  is  said,  and  that  charge 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  183 

is  also  true.  I  doubt  if  one  of  the  family  in  the 
barge  office  could  read  or  write  his  own  name.  Yet 
would  you  fear  especial  danger  to  our  institutions, 
to  our  citizenship,  from  those  four?  He  lives 
cheaply,  crowds,  and  underbids  even  the  Jew  in  the 
sweat  shop.  I  can  myself  testify  to  the  truth  of 
these  statements.  A  couple  of  years  ago  I  was  the 
umpire  in  a  quarrel  between  the  Jewish  tailors  and 
the  factory  inspector  whom  they  arraigned  before 
the  governor  on  charges  of  inefficiency.  The 
burden  of  their  grievance  was  that  the  Italians 
were  underbidding  them  in  their  own  market, 
which  of  course  the  factory  inspector  could  not 
prevent.  Yet,  even  so,  the  evidence  is  not  that  the 
Italian  always  gets  the  best  of  it.  I  came  across 
a  family  once  working  on  "  knee-pants."  "  Twelve 
pants,  ten  cents,"  said  the  tailor,  when  there  was 
work.  "  Ve  work  for  dem  sheenies,"  he  explained. 
"  Ven  dey  has  work,  ve  gets  some ;  ven  dey  hasn't, 
ve  don't."  He  was  an  unusually  gifted  tailor  as  to 
English,  but  apparently  not  as  to  business  capacity. 
In  the  Astor  tenements,  in  Elizabeth  Street,  where 
we  found  forty-three  families  living  in  rooms  in- 
tended for  sixteen,  I  saw  women  finishing  "pants" 
at  thirty  cents  a  day.  Some  of  the  garments  were 
of  good  grade,  and  some  of  poor;  some  of  them 
were  soldiers'  trousers,  made  for  the  government; 
but  whether  they  received  five,  seven,  eight,  or  ten 


1 84  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

cents  a  pair,  it  came  to  thirty  cents  a  day,  except  in 
a  single  instance,  in  which  two  women,  sewing  from 
five  in  the  morning  till  eleven  at  night,  were  able, 
being  practised  hands,  to  finish  forty-five  "  pants " 
at  three  and  a  half  cents  a  pair,  and  so  made 
together  over  a  dollar  and  a  half.  They  were 
content,  even  happy.  I  suppose  it  seemed  wealth 
to  them,  coming  from  a  land  where  a  Parisian 
investigator  of  repute  found  three  lire  (not  quite 
sixty  cents)  per  month  a  girl's  wages. 

I  remember  one  of  those  flats,  poor  and  dingy, 
yet  with  signs  of  the  instinctive  groping  toward  or- 
derly arrangement  which  I  have  observed  so  many 
times,  and  take  to  be  evidence  that  in  better  sur- 
roundings much  might  be  made  of  these  people. 
Clothes  were  hung  to  dry  on  a  line  strung  the 
whole  length  of  the  room.  Upon  couches  by  the 
wall  some  men  were  snoring.  They  were  the  board- 
ers. The  "man"  was  out  shovelling  snow  with  the 
midnight  shift.  By  a  lamp  with  brown  paper  shade, 
over  at  the  window,  sat  two  women  sewing.  One 
had  a  baby  on  her  lap.  Two  sweet  little  cherubs, 
nearly  naked,  slept  on  a  pile  of  unfinished  "  pants," 
and  smiled  in  their  sleep.  A  girl  of  six  or  seven 
dozed  in  a  child's  rocker  between  the  two  workers, 
with  her  head  hanging  down  on  one  side;  the 
mother  propped  it  up  with  her  elbow  as  she  sewed. 
They  were  all  there,  and  happy  in  being  together 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  185 

even  in  such  a  place.  On  a  corner  shelf  burned  a 
night  lamp  before  a  print  of  the  Mother  of  God, 
flanked  by  two  green  bottles,  which,  seen  at  a  cer- 
tain angle,  made  quite  a  festive  show. 

Complaint  is  made  that  the  Italian  promotes  child 
labor.  His  children  work  at  home  on  "pants"  and 
flowers  at  an  hour  when  they  ought  to  have  been  long 
in  bed.  Their  sore  eyes  betray  the  little  flower-mak- 
ers when  they  come  tardily  to  school.  Doubtless 
there  are  such  cases,  and  quite  too  many  of  them  ; 
yet,  in  the  very  block  which  I  have  spoken  of,  the 
investigation  conducted  for  the  Gilder  Tenement 
House  Commission  by  the  Department  of  Sociology 
of  Columbia  University,  under  Professor  Franklin  H. 
Giddings,  discovered,  of  196  children  of  school  age, 
only  23  at  work  or  at  home,  and  in  the  next  block 
only  27  out  of  215.  That  was  the  showing  of  the 
foreign  population  all  the  way  through.  Of  225 
Russian  Jewish  children  only  15  were  missing  from 
school,  and  of  354  little  Bohemians  only  21.  The 
overcrowding  of  the  schools  and  their  long  waiting 
lists  occasionally  furnished  the  explanation  why  they 
were  not  there.  Professor  Giddings  reported,  after 
considering  all  the  evidence :  "  The  foreign-born 
population  of  the  city  is  not,  to  any  great  extent, 
forcing  children  of  legal  school  age  into  money- 
earning  occupations.  On  the  contrary,  this  popu- 
lation shows  a  strong  desire  to  have  its  children 


1 86  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

acquire  the  common  rudiments  of  education.  If  the 
city  does  not  provide  liberally  and  wisely  for  the  sat- 
isfaction of  this  desire,  the  blame  for  the  civic  and 
moral  dangers  that  will  threaten  our  community, 
because  of  ignorance,  vice,  and  poverty,  must  rest  on 
the  whole  public,  not  on  our  foreign-born  residents." 
And  Superintendent  Maxwell  of  the  Department  of 
Education  adds,  six  years  later,  that  with  a  shortage 
of  28,000  seats,  and  worse  coming,  "  it  is  difficult 
to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  insufficiency  of 
school  accommodation  in  New  York  City  is  a  most 
serious  menace  to  our  universal  welfare."  ^  For  we 
have  reached  the  stage  again,  thanks  be  to  four 
years  of  Tammany,  when,  after  all  the  sacrifices  of 
the  past,  we  are  once  more  face  to  face  with  an  army 
of  enforced  truants,  and  all  they  stand  for. 

He  is  clannish,  this  Italian ;  he  gambles  and  uses 
a  knife,  though  rarely  on  anybody  not  of  his  own 
people ;  he  "  takes  what  he  can  get,"  wherever  any- 
thing is  free,  as  who  would  not,  coming  to  the  feast 
like  a  starved  wolf  ?  There  was  nothing  free  where 
he  came  from.  Even  the  salt  was  taxed  past  a  poor 
man's  getting  any  of  it.  Lastly,  he  buys  fraudulent 
naturalization  papers,  and  uses  them.  I  shall  plead 
guilty  for  him  to  every  one  of  these  counts.  They 
are  all  proven.  Gambling  is  his  besetting  sin.  He 
is  sober,  industrious,  frugal,  enduring  beyond  belief ; 

^  Superintendent  Maxwell  in  Municipal  Affairs,  December,  1900. 


PIETRO   AND   THE   JEW  1 8/ 

but  he  will  gamble  on  Sunday  and  quarrel  over  his 
cards,  and  when  he  sticks  his  partner  in  the  heat  of 
the  quarrel,  the  partner  is  not  apt  to  tell.  He  pre- 
fers to  bide  his  time.  Yet  there  has  lately  been 
evidence  once  or  twice,  in  the  surrender  of  an  assas- 
sin by  his  countrymen,  that  the  old  vendetta  is  being 
shelved  and  a  new  idea  of  law  and  justice  is  break- 
ing through.  As  to  the  last  charge :  our  Italian  is 
not  dull.  With  his  intense  admiration  for  the  land 
where  a  dollar  a  day  waits  upon  the  man  with  a 
shovel,  he  can  see  no  reason  why  he  should  not 
accept  the  whole  "  American  plan "  with  ready 
enthusiasm.  It  is  a  good  plan.  To  him  it  sums 
itself  up  in  the  statement:  a  dollar  a  day  for  the 
shovel ;  two  dollars  for  the  shovel  with  a  citizen 
behind  it.  And  he  takes  the  papers  and  the  two 
dollars. 

He  came  here  for  a  chance  to  live.  Of  politics, 
social  ethics,  he  knows  nothing.  Government  in 
his  old  home  existed  only  for  his  oppression.  Why 
should  he  not  attach  himself  with  his  whole  loyal  soul 
to  the  plan  of  government  in  his  new  home  that  offers 
to  boost  him  into  the  place  of  his  wildest  ambition, 
a  "job  on  the  streets,"  —  that  is,  in  the  Street  Clean- 
ing Department,  —  and  asks  no  other  return  than 
that  he  shall  vote  as  directed  ?  Vote  !  Not  only 
he,  but  his  cousins  and  brothers  and  uncles  will  vote 
as  they  are  told,  to  get    Pietro  the  job  he  covets. 


1 88  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

If  it  pleases  the  other  man,  what  is  it  to  him  for 
whom  he  votes  ?     He  is  after  the  job. 

Here,  ready-made  to  the  hand  of  the  politician,  is 
such  material  as  he  never  saw  before.  For  Pietro's 
loyalty  is  great.  As  a  police  detective,  one  of  his 
own  people,  once  put  it  to  me,  "  He  got  a  kind  of 
an  idea,  or  an  old  rule :  an  eye  for  an  eye ;  do  to  an- 
other as  you'd  be  done  by ;  if  he  don't  squeal  on 
you,  you  stick  by  him,  no  matter  what  the  conse- 
quences." This  "  kind  of  an  idea  "  is  all  he  has  to 
draw  upon  for  an  answer  to  the  question  if  the 
thing  is  right.  But  the  question  does  not  arise. 
Why  should  it.?  Was  he  not  told  by  the  agita- 
tors whom  the  police  jailed  at  home  that  in  a  re- 
public all  men  are  made  happy  by  means  of  the 
vote  ?  And  is  there  not  proof  of  it  ?  It  has  made 
him  happy,  has  it  not  ?  And  the  man  who  bought 
his  vote  seems  to  like  it.     Well,  then } 

Very  early  Pietro  discovered  that  it  was  every 
man  for  himself,  in  the  chase  of  the  happiness 
which  this  powerful  vote  had  in  keeping.  He 
was  robbed  by  the  padrone  —  that  is,  the  boss  — 
when  he  came  over,  fleeced  on  his  steamship  fare, 
made  to  pay  for  getting  a  job,  and  charged  three 
prices  for  board  and  lodging  and  extras  while 
working  in  the  railroad  gang.  The  boss  had  a 
monopoly,  and  Pietro  was  told  that  it  was  main- 
tained by  his  "  divvying  "  with  some  railroad  official. 


PIETRO   AND   THE   JEW  1 89 

Rumor  said,  a  very  high-up  official,  and  that  the 
railroad  was  in  politics  in  the  city;  that  is  to  say, 
dealt  in  votes.  When  the  job  gave  out,  the  boss 
packed  him  into  the  tenement  he  had  bought 
with  his  profits  on  the  contract ;  and  if  Pietro 
had    a   family,  told    him    to   take    in    lodgers    and 


The  Play  School.     Dressing  Dolls  for  a  Lesson. 

crowd  his  flat,  as  the  Elizabeth  Street  tenements 
were  crowded,  so  as  to  make  out  the  rent,  and 
to  never  mind  the  law.  The  padrone  was  a 
politician,  and  had  a  pull.  He  was  bigger  than 
the  law,  and  it  was  the  votes  he  traded  in  that 
did  it  all.  Now  it  was  Pietro's  turn.  With  his 
vote  he  could  buy  what  to   him  seemed   wealth ; 


I90  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

two  dollars  a  day.  In  the  muddle  of  ideas,  that 
was  the  one  which  stood  out  clearly.  When  citi- 
zen papers  were  offered  him  for  ^12.50,  he  bought 
them   quickly,  and   got   his  job    on   the    street. 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  country.  If  there  was 
any  doubt  about  it,  the  proof  was  furnished  when 
Pietro  was  arrested  through  the  envy  and  plotting 
of  the  opposition  boss.  Distinguished  counsel, 
employed  by  the  machine,  pleaded  his  case  in 
court.  Pietro  felt  himself  to  be  quite  a  personage, 
and  he  was  told  that  he  was  safe  from  harm,  though 
a  good  deal  of  dust  might  be  kicked  up ;  because, 
when  it  came  down  to  that,  both  the  bosses  were 
doing  the  same  kind  of  business.  I  quote  from 
the  report  of  the  State  Superintendent  of  Elections 
of  January,  1899:  "In  nearly  every  case  of  illegal 
registration,  the  defendant  was  represented  by  emi- 
nent counsel  who  were  identified  with  the  Demo- 
cratic organization,  among  them  being  three 
assistants  to  the  corporation  counsel.  My  depu- 
ties arrested  Rosario  Calecione  and  Giuseppe  Mar- 
rone,  both  of  whom  appeared  to  vote  at  the  fifth 
election  district  of  the  Sixth  Assembly  District; 
Marrone  being  the  Democratic  captain  of  the  dis- 
trict, and,  it  was  charged,  himself  engaged  in 
the  business  of  securing  fraudulent  naturalization 
papers.  In  both  of  these  cases  Farriello  had  pro- 
cured the   naturalization   papers  for   the   men   for 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  191 

a  consideration.  They  were  subsequently  indicted. 
Marrone  and  Calecione  were  bailed  by  the  Demo- 
cratic leader  of  the  Sixth  Assembly  District." 

The  business,  says  the  state  superintendent,  is 
carried  on  "  to  an  enormous  extent."  It  appears, 
then,  that  Pietro  has  already  "  got  on  to "  the 
American  plan  as  the  slum  presented  it  to  him, 
and  has  in  good  earnest  become  a  problem.  I 
guessed  as  much  from  the  statement  of  a  Tammany 
politician  to  me,  a  year  ago,  that  every  Italian  voter 
in  his  district  got  his  "  old  two  "  on  election  day. 
He  ought  to  know,  for  he  held  the  purse.  Suppose, 
now,  we  speak  our  minds  as  frankly,  for  once,  and 
put  the  blame  where  it  belongs.  Will  it  be  on 
Pietro?  And  upon  this  showing,  who  ought  to 
be  excluded,  when  it  comes  to  that? 

The  slum  census  taker  did  not  cross  the  Bowery. 
Had  he  done  so,  he  would  have  come  upon  the 
refugee  Jew,  the  other  economic  marplot  of  whom 
complaint  is  made  with  reason.  If  his  Nemesis 
has  overtaken  him  in  the  Italian,  certainly  he  chal- 
lenged that  fate.  He  did  cut  wages  by  his  coming. 
He  was  starving,  and  he  came  in  shoals.  In 
eighteen  years  more  than  half  a  million  Jewish 
immigrants  have  landed  in   New  York.^     They  had 

^  According  to  the  register  of  the  United  Hebrew  Charities,  between 
October  i,  1884,  and  June  i,  1902,  the  number  was  539,067,  and  it  is 
again  on  the  increase.  The  year  1902  will  probably  show  an  increase 
in  this  class  of  immigration  over  1901  of  quite  15,000. 


192  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

to  have  work  and  food,  and  they  got  both  as  they 
could.  In  the  strife  they  developed  qualities  that 
were  anything  but  pleasing.  They  herded  like 
cattle.  They  had  been  so  herded  by  Christian 
rulers,  a  despised  and  persecuted  race,  through  the 
centuries.  Their  very  coming  was  to  escape  from 
their  last  inhuman  captivity  in  a  Christian  state. 
They  lied,  they  were  greedy,  they  were  charged 
with  bad  faith.  They  brought  nothing,  neither 
money  nor  artisan  skill,  —  nothing  but  their  con- 
suming energy,  to  our  land,  and  their  one  gift  was 
their  greatest  offence.  One  might  have  pointed 
out  that  they  had  been  trained  to  lie,  for  their 
safety;  had  been  forbidden  to  work  at  trades,  to 
own  land ;  had  been  taught  for  a  thousand  years, 
with  the  scourge  and  the  stake,  that  only  gold 
could  buy  them  freedom  from  torture.  But  what 
was  the  use  ?  The  charges  were  true.  The  Jew 
Was  —  he  still  is  —  a  problem  of  our  slum. 

And  yet,  if  ever  there  was  material  for  citizen- 
ship, this  Jew  is  such  material.  Alone  of  all  our 
immigrants  he  comes  to  us  without  a  past.  He 
has  no  country  to  renounce,  no  ties  to  forget. 
Within  him  there  burns  a  passionate  longing  for 
a  home  to  call  his,  a  country  which  will  own  him, 
that  waits  only  for  the  spark  of  such  another  love 
to  spring  into  flame  which  nothing  can  quench. 
Waiting  for  it,  all  his  energies  are  turned  into  his 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  193 

business.  He  is  not  always  choice  in  method ;  he 
often  offends.  He  crowds  to  the  front  in  every- 
thing, no  matter  whom  he  crowds  out.  The  land  is 
filled  with  his  clamor.  "  If  the  East  Side  would  shut 
its  mouth  and  the  West  Side  get  off  the  saloon  cor- 
ner, we  could  get  somewhere,"  said  a  weary  philan- 
thropist to  me  the  other  day,  and  made  me  laugh, 
for  I  knew  what  he  meant.  But  the  Jew  heeds  it 
not.  He  knows  what  he  wants  and  he  gets  it.  He 
succeeds.  He  is  the  yeast  of  any  slum,  if  given  time. 
If  it  will  not  let  him  go,  it  must  rise  with  him. 
The  charity  managers  in  London  said  it,  when  we 
looked  through  their  slums  some  years  ago,  "  The 
Jews  have  renovated  Whitechapel."  I,  for  one,  am 
a  firm  believer  in  this  Jew,  and  in  his  boy.  Igno- 
rant they  are,  but  with  a  thirst  for  knowledge  that 
surmounts  any  barrier.  The  boy  takes  all  the 
prizes  in  the  school.  His  comrades  sneer  that  he 
will  not  fight.  Neither  will  he  when  there  is  noth- 
ing to  be  gained  by  it.  Yet,  in  defence  of  his 
rights,  there  is  in  all  the  world  no  such  fighter  as 
he.  Literally,  he  will  die  fighting,  by  inches,  too, 
from  starvation.  Witness  his  strikes.  I  believe 
that,  should  the  time  come  when  the  country  needs 
fighting  men,  the  son  of  the  despised  immigrant 
Jew  will  resurrect  on  American  soil,  the  first  that 
bade  him  welcome,  the  old  Maccabee  type,  and  set 
an  example  for  all  the  rest  of  us  to  follow. 


194  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

This  long  while  he  has  been  in  the  public  eye 
as  the  vehicle  and  promoter  of  sweating,  and  much 
severe  condemnation  has  been  visited  upon  him 
with  good  cause.  He  had  to  do  something,  and  he 
took  to  the  clothes-maker's  trade  as  that  which  was 
most  quickly  learned.  The  increasing  crowds,  the 
tenement,  and  his  grinding  poverty  made  the  soil 
wherein  the  evil  grew  rank.  But  the  real  sweater 
does  not  live  in  Ludlow  Street;  he  keeps  the  stylish 
shop  on  Broadway,  and  he  does  not  always  trouble 
himself  to  find  out  how  his  workers  fare,  much  as 
that  may  have  to  do  with  the  comfort  and  security 
of  his  customers. 

"  We  do  not  have  to  have  a  license,"  said  the 
tenants  in  one  wretched  flat  where  a  consumptive 
was  sewing  on  coats  almost  with  his  last  gasp ; 
"  we  work  for  a  first-class  place  on   Broadway." 

And  so  they  did.  Sweating  is  simply  a  question 
of  profit  to  the  manufacturer.  By  letting  out  his 
work  on  contract,  he  can  save  the  expense  of  run- 
ning his  factory  and  delay  longer  making  his  choice 
of  styles.  If  the  contractor,  in  turn,  can  get  along 
with  less  shop  room  by  having  as  much  of  the  work 
as  can  profitably  be  so  farmed  out  done  in  the  tene- 
ments by  cheap  home  labor,  he  is  so  much  better 
off.  And  tenement  labor  is  always  cheap  because 
of  the  crowds  that  clamor  for  it  and  must  have 
bread.     The  poor  Jew  is  the  victim  of  the  mischief 


PIETRO    AND   THE   JEW  I95 

quite  as  much  as  he  has  helped  it  on.  Back  of  the 
manufacturer  and  the  contractor  there  is  still  an- 
other sweater,  —  the  public.  Only  by  its  sufferance 
of  the  bargain  counter  and  of  sweat-shop-made  goods 
has  the  nuisance  existed  as  long  as  it  has.  I  am 
glad  I  have  lived  to  see  the  day  of  its  passing,  for, 
unless  I  greatly  mistake,  it  is  at  hand  now  that  the 
old  silent  partner  is  going  out  of  the  firm. 

I  mean  the  public.  We  tried  it  in  the  old  days, 
but  the  courts  said  the  bill  to  stop  tenement  cigar- 
making  was  unconstitutional.  Labor  was  property, 
and  property  is  inviolable  —  rightly  so  until  it  it- 
self becomes  a  threat  to  the  commonwealth.  Child 
labor  is  such  a  threat.  It  has  been  stopped  in  the 
factories,  but  no  one  can  stop  it  in  the  tenement  so 
long  as  families  are  licensed  to  work  there.  The 
wrecking  of  the  home  that  is  inevitable  where  the 
home  is  turned  into  a  shop  with  thirty  cents  as  a 
woman's  wage  is  that;  the  overcrowding  that  goes 
hand  in  hand  with  home-work  is  that ;  the  scourge 
of  consumption  which  doctors  and  Boards  of  Health 
wrestle  with  in  vain  while  dying  men  and  women 
"  sew  on  coats  with  their  last  gasp  "  and  sew  the 
death  warrant  of  the  buyer  into  the  lining,  is  a 
threat  the  gravity  of  which  we  have  hardly  yet  made 
out.  Courts  and  constitutions  reflect  the  depth  of 
public  sentiment  on  a  moral  or  political  issue.  We 
have  been  doing  a  deal  of  dredging  since  then,  and 


196  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

we  are  at  it  yet.  While  I  am  writing  a  Tubercu- 
losis Committee  is  at  work  sifting  the  facts  of  tene- 
ment-house life  as  they  bear  on  that  peril.  A  Child 
Labor  Committee  is  preparing  to  attack  the  slum 
in  its  centre,  as  we  stopped  the  advance  guard  when 
we  made  the  double-decker  unprofitable.  The 
factory  inspector  is  gathering  statistics  of  earnings 
and  hours  of  labor  in  sweat  shop  and  tenement  to 
throw  light  on  the  robbery  that  goes  on  there. 
When  they  have  told  us  what  they  have  to  tell,  it 
may  be  that  we  shall  be  able  to  say  to  the  manu- 
facturer :  "  You  shall  not  send  out  goods  to  be  made 
in  sweat  shop  or  tenement.  You  shall  make  them 
in  your  own  shop  or  not  at  all."  He  will  not  be 
hurt,  for  all  will  have  to  do  alike.  I  am  rather 
inclined  to  think  that  he  will  be  glad  to  take  that 
way  out  of  a  grisly  plight. 

For  he  has  seen  the  signs  of  a  flank  movement 
that  goes  straight  for  his  pocket-book,  an  organ- 
ized public  sentiment  that  is  getting  ready  to  say  to 
him,  "  We  will  buy  no  clothes  or  wear  them,  or  any 
other  thing  whatsoever,  that  is  made  at  the  price  of 
the  life  and  hope  of  other  men  or  women."  Wher- 
ever I  went  last  winter,  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land,  women  were  stirring  to  organ- 
ize branches  of  the  Consumers'  League.  True, 
they  were  the  well-to-do,  not  yet  the  majority. 
But   they   were   the  very   ones  who   once   neither 


\ 


PIETRO   AND   THE   JEW  I97 

knew  nor  cared.  Now  they  do  both.  That  is  more 
than  half  the  fight.  Whatever  may  be  the  present 
results  of  the  agitation,  in  the  long  run  I  would 
rather  take  my  chances  with  a  vigorous  Consumers' 
League  and  not  a 
law  in  the  state  to 
safeguard  labor  or 
the  community's  in- 
terests, than  with  the  ""^'^^  °'  Consumers'  League. 

most  elaborate  code  man  has  yet  devised,  and  the 
bargain  counter  in  full  blast,  unchallenged,  from 
Monday  to  Saturday.  Laws  may  be  evaded,  and 
too  often  are ;  tags  betraying  that  goods  are  "  tene- 
ment made "  may  be  removed,  and  they  make 
no  appeal  anyhow  to  a  community  deaf  to  the 
arraignment  of  the  bargain  counter.  But  an  in- 
structed public  sentiment,  such  as  that  of  which 
the  Consumers'  League  ^  is  the  most  recent  expres- 
sion, makes  laws  and  enforces  them  too.     By  its  aid 

^  The  following  is  the  declaration  of  principles  of  the  National  Con- 
sumers' League : — 

Sec.  I.  That  the  interests  of  the  community  demand  that  all  workers 
shall  receive  fair  living  wages,  and  that  goods  shall  be  produced  under 
sanitary  conditions. 

Sec.  2.  That  the  responsibility  for  some  of  the  worst  evils  from 
which  producers  suffer  rests  with  the  consumers  who  seek  the  cheapest 
markets  regardless  how  cheapness  is  brought  about. 

Sec.  3.  That  it  is,  therefore,  the  duty  of  consumers  to  find  out  under 
what  conditions  the  articles  they  purchase  are  produced  and  distributed, 
and  insist  that  these  conditions  shall  be  wholesome,  and  consistent  with 
a  respectable  existence  on  the  part  of  the  workers. 


198 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


we  have  forced  the  children  out  of  the  factories,  the 
sweat  shops  out  of  the  tenements,  and  shut  the  door 
against  the  stranger  there.  Only  to  families  are 
licenses  granted.  By  its  aid  we  shall  yet  drive  work 
out  of  the  home  altogether;  for  goods  are  made  to 

sell,  and  none  will 
be  made  which  no 
one  will  buy. 

Organized  labor 
makes  its  own  ap- 
peal to  the  same 
end.  From  this 
year  (1892)  on,  the 
United  Garment 
Workers  of  Amer- 
ica resolved  in  na- 
tional convention 
to  give  their  stamp 
to  no  manufacturer 
who  does  not  have 
all  his  work  done 
on  his  own  prem- 
ises. If  they  faithfully  live  up  to  that  compact 
with  the  public,  they  will  win.  Two  winters  ago  I 
took  their  label,  which  was  supposed  to  guarantee 
living  wages  and  clean  and  healthy  conditions,  from 
the  hip  pocket  of  a  pair  of  trousers  which  I  found 
a  man,  sick  with  scarlet  fever,  using  as  a  pillow  in 


Josephine  Shaw  Lowell,  Chairman  of  the 
Vagrancy  Committee,  and  one  of  the 
Strongest  Forces  in .  Charity  Organiza- 
tion, the  Consumers'  League,  and  every 
other  Healthy  Reform  Effort. 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  199 

one  of  the  foulest  sweater's  tenements  I  had  ever 
been  in,  and  carried  it  to  the  headquarters  of  the 
union  to  show  them  what  a  mockery  they  were 
making  of  the  mightiest  engine  that  had  come  to 
their  hand.  I  am  glad  to  believe  those  days  are 
over  for  good ;  and  when  we  all  believe  it  their  fight 
will  be  won.  When  the  union  label  deserves  public 
confidence  as  a  guarantee  against  such  things,  it 
will  receive  it.  When  I  know  that  insisting  on  a 
union  plumber  for  my  pipes  means  that  the  job  will 
be  done  right,  then  I  will  always  send  for  a  union 
plumber  and  have  no  other.  That  is  the  whole 
story,  and  on  that  day  the  label  will  be  mightier 
than  any  law,  because  the  latter  will  be  merely  the 
effort  to  express  by  statute  the  principle  it  embodies. 
Stragglers  there  will  always  be,  I  suppose.  It 
was  only  the  other  day  I  read  in  the  report  of  the 
Consumers'  League  in  my  own  city  that  "  a  benevo- 
lent institution,"  when  found  giving  out  clothing  to 
be  made  in  tenement  houses  that  were  not  licensed, 
and  taken  to  task  for  it,  asked  the  agents  of  the 
League  to  "  show  some  way  in  which  the  law  could 
be  evaded  " ;  but  it  is  just  as  well  for  that  "  benevo- 
lent institution  "  that  name  and  address  were  want- 
ing, or  it  might  find  its  funds  running  short 
unaccountably.  We  are  waking  up.  This  very 
licensing  of  tenement  workers  is  proof  of  it,  though 
it  gives  one  a  cold  chill  to  see  thirty  thousand  licenses 


200  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

out,  with  hardly  a  score  of  factory  inspectors  to  keep 
tab  on  them.  Roosevelt,  as  governor,  set  the  pace, 
going  himself  among  the  tenements  to  see  how  the 
law  was  enforced,  and  how  it  could  be  mended. 
Now  we  have  a  registry  system  copied  from  Massa- 
chusetts, where  they  do  these  things  right  and  most 
others  besides.  An  index  is  so  arranged  by  streets 
that  when  the  printed  sheet  comes  every  morning 
from  the  Bureau  of  Contagious  Diseases,  with  name 
and  house  number  of  every  case  of  small-pox,  scarlet 
fever,  diphtheria,  etc.  reported  during  the  twenty- 
four  hours,  a  clerk  can  check  one  off  from  the  other 
in  half  an  hour,  and  before  noon  have  every  infected 
flat  quarantined.  Word  is  sent  to  the  manufacturer 
to  stop  sending  any  more  supplies  there,  and  the 
garments  in  the  house  are  tagged  till  after  disinfec- 
tion. And  by  the  same  means  all  the  cards  are  laid 
on  the  table.  If  a  merchant  in  California  or  in 
Florida  brags  that  he  buys  only  factory-made  goods, 
the  customer  can  find  out  through  the  Consumers' 
League  if  it  is  true.  If  the  register  shows  that  the 
manufacturer  has  filed  lists  of  the  tenements  where 
his  goods  are  made  up,  it  is  not  true.  All  of  which 
helps. 

But  Massachusetts  is  Massachusetts,  and  New 
York  is  New  York.  A  tenement-house  population 
of  more  than  two  millions  of  souls  makes  its  own 
problems,  and  there  is  no  other  like  it.     After  all, 


PIETRO   AND   THE  JEW  20I 

the  chief  function  of  the  Hcense  must,  in  the  end,  be 
to  show  that  it  cannot  be  done  so  —  safely.  Even 
with  the  active  cooperation  of  the  Board  of  Health, 
and  with  the  nearly  two  hundred  tenement-house  in- 
spectors that  are  being  turned  loose  this  summer, 
full  of  new  zeal  and  desire  to  make  a  record,  we 
shall  yet  be  whipping  the  devil  around  the  stump 
until  the  public  sentiment  fostered  by  the  Con- 
sumers' League  and  its  allies  heads  him  off  on  the 
other  side.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  job 
is  too  big  for  the  law  alone.  It  needs  the  gospel  to 
back  it  up.     Together  they  can  do  it. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

ON    WHOM    SHALL    WE    SHUT   THE    DOOR? 

The  Jew  and  the  Italian  have  filled  the  land- 
scape so  far,  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  is 
what  they  do.  Yesterday  it  was  the  Irishman  and 
the  Bohemian.  To-morrow  it  may  be  the  Greek, 
who  already  undersells  the  Italian  from  his  push- 
cart in  the  Fourth  Ward,  and  the  Syrian,  who  can 
give  Greek,  Italian,  and  Jew  points  at  a  trade.  The 
rebellious  Slovak  holds  his  own  corner  in  our  in- 
dustrial system,  though  never  for  long.  He  yearns 
ever  for  the  mountain  sides  of  his  own  Hungary. 
He  remembers,  where  the  Jew  tries  only  to  forget. 
From  Dalmatia  comes  a  new  emigration,  and  there 
are  signs  that  the  whole  Balkan  peninsula  has 
caught  the  fever  and  is  waiting  only  for  cheap 
transportation  to  be  established  on  the  Danube  to 
the  Black  Sea,  when  there  is  no  telling  what  will 
be  heading  our  way.  I  sometimes  wonder  what 
thoughts  come  to  the  eagle  that  perches  over  the 
great  stone  gateway  on  Ellis  Island,  as  he  watches 
the  procession  that  files  through  it  into  the  United 
States  day  after  day,  and  never  ends.     He  looks  out 


ON    WHOM    SHALL   WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR? 


203 


One  Door  that  has  been  opened:     St.  John's  Park  in  Hudson  Street. — 
once  a  Graveyard. 

of  his  grave,  unblinking  eye  at  the  motley  crowd, 
but  gives  no  sign.  Does  he  ask :  "  Where  are  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  the  brave  Huguenots,  the  patient 
Puritans,  the  sturdy  priests,  and  the  others  that 
came  for  conscience'  sake  to  build  upon  this  conti- 
nent a  home  for  freedom  ?  And  these,  why  do 
they  come  with  their  strange  tongues  —  for  gold  ?  " 
True,  eagle !  but  look  to  the  roster  of  those  who 
fought  and  died  for  the  freedom  those  pioneers 
planted,  who  watered  the  tree  with  their  life  blood, 
and  see  how  many  you  find  inscribed  there  who 
came  through  that  gate.  Go  to  the  public  school 
and  hear  their  children  speak  the  tongue  that  is 


204  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

sweet  to  your  ear;  hear  their  young  voices  as  they 
salute  the  flag  that  is  theirs: 

"  We  give  our  heads  and  our  hearts  to  our  country. 
One  country,  one  language,  one  flag !  " 

Fear  not,  eagle !  While  that  gate  is  open  let  no 
one  bar  the  one  you  guard.  While  the  flag  flies 
over  the  public  school,  keep  it  aloft  over  Ellis  Island 
and  have  no  misgivings.  The  school  has  the  an- 
swer to  your  riddle. 

About  once  a  week  I  am  asked:  Would  I  shut 
out  any,  and  whom  and  how  and  why .''  Sometimes, 
looking  at  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  tenement 
and  the  sweat  shop,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  city,  —  I 
think  I  would.  And  were  that  all,  I  certainly 
should.  But  then,  there  comes  up  the  recollection  of 
a  picture  of  the  city  of  Prague  that  hangs  in  a  Bohe- 
mian friend's  parlor,  here  in  New  York.  I  stood 
looking  at  it  one  day,  and  noticed  in  the  foreground 
cannon  that  pointed  in  over  the  city.  I  spoke  of  it, 
unthinking,  and  said  to  my  host  that  they  should 
be  trained,  if  against  an  enemy,  the  other  way.  The 
man's  eye  flashed  fire.  "  Ha !"  he  cried,  "  here,  yes !  " 
When  I  think  of  that,  I  do  not  want  to  shut  the  door. 

Again,  there  occurs  to  me  an  experience  the 
police  had  a  few  years  ago  in  Mulberry  Street. 
They  were  looking  for  a  murderer,  and  came  upon 
a  nest  of  Italian  thugs  who  lived  by  blackmailing 
their  countrymen.     They  were  curious  about  them, 


ON   WHOM    SHALL  WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR  ?        205 


and  sent  their  names  to  Naples  with  a  request  for 
information.  There  came  back  such  a  record  as 
none  of  the  detectives  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of  be- 
fore. All  of  them  were  notorious  criminals,  who 
had  been  charged  with  every  conceivable  crime, 
from  burglary  to  kidnapping  and  "maiming,"  and 
some  not  to  be  conceived  of  by  the  American  mind. 
Five  of  them  together  had  been  sixty-three  times  in 
jail,  and  one  no  less  than 
twenty-one  times.  Yet, 
though  they  were  all  "  under 
special  surveillance,"  they 
had  come  here  without  let 
or  hindrance  within  a  year. 
When  I  recall  that,  I  want 
to  shut  the  door  quick.  I 
sent  the  exhibit  to  Washing- 
ton at  the  time. 

But  then,  again,  when  I 
think  of  Mrs.  Michelangelo, 
in  her  poor  mourning  for 
one  child  run  over  and  killed, 
wiping  her  tears  away  and 
going  bravely  to  work  to  keep  the  home  together 
for  the  other  five  until  the  oldest  shall  be  old  enough 
to  take  her  father's  place ;  and  when,  as  now,  there 
strays  into  my  hand  the  letter  from  my  good  friend, 
the  "woman   doctor"  in   the  slum,   in    which    she 


Dr.  Jane  Elizabeth  Robbins, 
the  "Woman  Doctor." 


206  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

wrote,  when  her  father  lay  dead :  '*  The  little  scamps 
of  the  street  have  been  positively  pathetic;  they 
have  made  such  shy,  boyish  attempts  at  friendliness ; 
one  little  chap  offered  to  let  me  hold  his  top  while 
it  was  spinning,  in  token  of  affection,"  —  when  I 
read  that,  I  have  not  the  heart  to  shut  anybody  out. 
Except,  of  course,  the  unfit,  the  criminal,  and  the 
pauper,  cast  off  by  their  own,  and  the  man  brought 
over  here  merely  to  put  money  into  the  pockets  of 
the  steamship  agent,  the  padrone,  and  the  mine 
owner.  We  have  laws  to  bar  these  out.  Suppose 
we  begin  by  being  honest  with  ourselves  and  the 
immigrant,  and  respecting  our  own  laws.  The  door 
that  is  to  be  shut  is  over  yonder,  at  the  port  where 
they  take  ship.  There  is  where  the  scrutiny  is  to 
be  made,  to  be  effective.  When  the  door  has  been 
shut  and  locked  against  the  man  who  left  his  coun- 
try for  his  country's  good,  whether  by  its  "  assist- 
ance "  or  not,  and  when  trafficking  in  the  immigrant 
for  private  profit  has  been  stopped,  then,  perhaps, 
we  shall  be  better  able  to  decide  what  degree  of 
ignorance  in  him  constitutes  unfitness  for  citizenship 
and  cause  for  shutting  him  out.  Perchance  then, 
also,  we  shall  hear  less  of  the  cant  about  his  being 
a  peril  to  the  republic.  Doubtless  ignorance  is  a 
peril,  but  the  selfishness  that  trades  upon  ignorance 
is  a  much  greater.  He  came  to  us  without  a  coun- 
try, ready  to  adopt  such  a  standard  of  patriotism  as 


ON   WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR?        207 

he  found,  at  its  face  value,  and  we  gave  him  the  rear 
tenement  and  slum  politics.  If  he  accepted  the 
standard,  whose  fault  was  it?  His  being  in  such  a 
hurry  to  vote  that  he  could  not  wait  till  the  law 
made  him  a  citizen  was  no  worse,  to  my  mind,  than 
the  treacher}'  of  the  "  upper  class "  native,  who  re- 
fuses to  go  to  the  polls  for  fear  he  may  rub  up 
against  him  there.  This  last  let  us  settle  with  first, 
and  see  what  remains  of  our  problem.  We  can  ap- 
proach it  honestly,  then,  at  all  events. 

I  came  into  town  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
the  other  day  just  when  the  emigrant  lighter  had 
tied  up  at  the  wharf  to  discharge  its  west-bound 
cargo.  For  a  full  hour  I  stood  watching  the  stream 
of  them,  thousands  upon  thousands,  carrying  knap- 
sacks and  trunks,  odd  in  speech  and  ways,  but 
all  of  them  with  hopeful  faces  set  toward  the  great 
country  where  they  were  to  win  their  own  way. 
So  they  answered  the  query  of  the  eagle  at  the 
island  gate.  Scarce  an  hour  within  the  gate,  they 
were  no  longer  a  problem.  The  country  needs 
these  men  of  strong  arms  and  strong  courage.  It 
is  in  the  city  the  shoe  pinches.  What  can  we  do 
to  relieve  it? 

Much  could  be  done  with  effective  inspection 
on  the  other  side,  to  discourage  the  blind  immigra- 
tion that  stops  short  in  the  city's  slums.  They 
come  to  better  themselves,  and  it  is  largely  a  ques- 


208  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

tion  of  making  it  clear  to  them  that  they  do  not 
better  themselves  and  make  us  to  be  worse  off  by 
staying  there,  whereas  their  going  farther  would 
benefit  both.  But  I  repeat  that  that  lever  must 
be  applied  over  there,  to  move  this  load.  Once  they 
are  here,  we  might  have  a  land  and  labor  bureau 
that  would  take  in  the  whole  country,  and  serve  as 
a  great  directory  and  distributing  agency,  instead 
of  leaving  it  to  private  initiative  to  take  up  the 
crowds,  —  something  much  more  comprehensive 
than  anything  now  existing.  There  would  still  be 
a  surplus ;  but  at  least  it  would  be  less  by  so  many 
as  we  sent  away.  And  in  the  nature  of  things  the 
congestion  would  be  lessened  as  more  went  out. 
Immigrants  go  where  they  have  friends,  and  if 
those  friends  lived  in  Michigan  we  should  not  be 
troubled  with  them  long  in  New  York.  If  the 
immigration  came  all  from  one  country,  we  should, 
because  of  that,  have  no  problem  at  all,  or  not 
much  of  one  at  all  events,  except  perhaps  in  the 
Jews,  who  have  lived  in  Ghettos  since  time  out  of 
mind.  The  others  would  speedily  be  found  mak- 
ing only  a  way  station  of  New  York.  It  is  the 
constant  kaleidoscopic  change  I  spoke  of  that 
brings  us  hordes  every  few  years  who  have  to 
break  entirely  new  ground.  It  seems  to  have  been 
always  so.  Forty  years  after  the  settlement  of 
Manhattan  Island,  says  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  his 


ON   WHOM    SHALL   WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR  ?       209 

history  of  New  York,  eighteen  different  languages 
and  dialects  were  spoken  in  its  streets,  though 
the  future  metropolis  was  then  but  a  small  vil- 
lage. "  No  sooner,"  says  he,  "  has  one  set  of  vary- 
ing elements  been  fused  together,  than  another 
stream  has  been  poured  into  the  crucible."  What 
was  true  of  New  York  two  hundred  years  ago  is 
true  to-day  of  the  country  of  which  it  is  the  gate- 
way. 

In  dealing  with  the  surplus  that  remains,  we 
shall  have  to  rely  first  and  foremost  on  the  public 
school.  Of  that  I  shall  speak  hereafter.  It  can  do 
more  and  better  work  than  it  is  doing,  for  the  old 
as  for  the  young,  when  it  becomes  the  real  neigh- 
borhood centre,  especially  in  the  slums.  The  flag 
flies  over  it,  that  is  one  thing,  and  not  such  a  little 
thing  as  some  imagine.  I  think  we  are  beginning 
to  see  it,  with  our  Flag  Day  and  our  putting  it  out 
when  we  never  thought  of  it  five  or  six  years  ago. 
And  by  the  way,  when  last  I  was  in  Denmark,  my 
native  land,  I  noticed  they  had  a  way  of  flying  the 
flag  on  Sunday,  —  whether  in  honor  of  the  day,  or 
because  they  loved  it,  or  because  they  felt  the  need 
of  flying  it  in  the  face  of  their  big  and  greedy  Ger- 
man neighbor,  I  shall  not  say.  But  it  was  all  right. 
Why  can  we  not  do  the  same  ?  It  would  not  hurt 
the  flag,  and  it  would  not  hurt  the  day.  They 
would   both   be   better  for   it  —  we  would   all   be. 


210  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

You  cannot  have  too  much  of  the  flag  in  the  right 
way,  and  there  would  be  nothing  wrong  about  that. 
Just  go  into  one  of  the  Children's  Aid  Society's 
ragged  schools,  where  the  children  are  practically 
all  from  abroad,  and  see  how  they  take  to  it. 
Watch  an    Italian   parade,  in    which    it   is   always 


^^^B' 

^T;!^^^! 

^^^Bikj''^I 

^^^^^^^^^H  ^1  S^^B 

mi 

One  Way  of  bringing  the  Children  into  Camp :    Basket-weaving  in 
Vacation  School. 

borne  side  by  side  with  the  standard  of  United 
Italy,  and  if  you  had  any  doubts  about  what  it 
stands  for  you  will  change  your  mind  quickly. 
The  sight  of  it  is  worth  a  whole  course  in  the 
school,  for  education  in  citizenship. 

And  then  it  looks  fine  in  the  landscape  always. 
It  always  makes  me  think  there  that  I  added  to  the 


ON   WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR?        211 

red  and  white  of  my  fathers'  flag  only  the  blue  of 
heaven,  where  wrongs  are  righted,  and  I  feel  better 
for  it.  Why  should  it  not  have  the  same  effect  on 
others  ?     I  know  it  has. 

The  school  might  be  made  the  means,  as  the 
house  to  which  all  the  life  of  the  neighborhood 
turned,  of  enrolling  the  immigrants  in  the  perilous 
years  when  they  are  not  yet  citizens.  I  know  what 
they  mean ;  I  have  gone  through  them,  seen  most 
of  the  mischief  they  hold  for  the  unattached.  That 
is  the  mischief,  that  they  are  unattached.  A  way 
must  be  found  of  claiming  them,  if  they  are  not  to 
be  lost  to  the  cause  of  good  citizenship  where  they 
might  so  easily  have  been  saved.  I  spoke  of  it  in 
"  The  Making  of  an  American."  They  want  to 
belong,  they  are  waiting  to  be  claimed  by  some  one, 
and  the  some  one  that  comes  is  Tammany  with  its 
slum  politics.  The  mere  enrolling  of  them,  with  leave 
to  march  behind  a  band  of  music,  suffices  with  the 
young.  They  belong  then.  The  old  are  used  to  en- 
rolment. Where  they  came  from  they  were  enrolled 
in  the  church,  in  the  army,  by  the  official  vaccinator, 
by  the  tax-collector  —  oh,  yes,  the  tax-collector  — 
and  here,  set  all  of  a  sudden  adrift,  it  seems  like 
a  piece  of  home  to  have  some  one  come  along  and 
claim  them,  write  them  down,  and  tell  them  that  they 
are  to  do  so  and  so.  Childish,  is  it  ?  Not  at  all.  It 
is  just  human  nature,  the  kind  we  are  working  with. 


212  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

The  mere  fact  that  the  school  house  is  there, 
inviting  them  in,  is  something.  When  it  comes 
to  seek  them  out,  to  invite  them  to  their  own  hall 
for  discussion,  for  play,  it  will  be  a  good  deal,  par- 
ticularly if  the  women  go  along.  And  the  enrol-, 
ment  of  the  schoolhouse  could  be  counted  as  being 
for  decency. 

It  makes  all  the  difference  what  the  start  is  like. 
"  Excellency,"  wrote  an  Italian  to  his  consul  in  New 
York,  "  I  arrived  from  Italy  last  week.  As  soon  as 
I  landed  a  policeman  clubbed  me.  I  am  going  to 
write  to  Victor  Emmanuel  how  things  are  done  here. 
Viva  r  Italia !  Abbasso  1'  America !  "  I  should  not 
be  surprised  to  find  that  man  plotting  anarchy  in 
Paterson  as  soon  as  he  got  his  bearings,  and  neither 
need  you  be. 

There  is  still  another  alternative  to  either  keeping 
them  out  or  keeping  them  in  the  city,  namely,  to 
ship  them  away  after  they  have  reached  the  slum 
and  been  stranded  there,  individually  or  in  squads. 
The  latter  way  was  tried  when  the  great  Jewish 
immigration  first  poured  in,  in  the  early  eighties. 
Five  colonies  of  refugee  Jews  were  started  in  south- 
ern New  Jersey,  but  they  failed.  The  soil  was 
sandy  and  poor,  and  the  work  unfamiliar.  Thrown 
upon  his  own  resources,  in  a  strange  and  unfriendly 
neighborhood,  the  man  grew  discouraged  and  gave 
up   in   despair.     The  colonies  were  in  a  state  of 


ON  WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT  THE   DOOR?        21 3 

collapse  when  the  New  York  managers  of  the 
Baron  de  Hirsch  Fund  took  them  under  the  arms 
and  gave  them  a  start  on  a  new  plan.  They  them- 
selves had  located  a  partly  industrial,  partly  farm- 
ing, community  in  the  neighborhood.  They  per- 
suaded several  large  clothing  contractors  to  move 
their  plants  out  to  the  villages,  where  they  would 
be  assured  of  steady  hands,  with  much  less  chance 
of  disturbing  strikes ;  while  on  the  other  hand  their 
workers  would  have  steadier  work  and  could  never 
starve  in  dull  seasons,  for  they  could  work  their 
farms  and  gardens.  And,  indeed,  a  perfect  frenzy 
for  spading  and  hoeing  seized  them  when  the  crops 
appeared,  with  promise  of  unlimited  potatoes  for  the 
digging  of  them.  The  experiment  is  still  in  prog- 
ress. It  is  an  experiment,  because  as  yet  the  Hirsch 
Fund  millions  back  the  colonies  up,  and  there  is  no 
passing  of  reasonable  judgment  upon  them  till  they 
have  stood  alone  awhile.  To  all  appearances  they 
are  prospering.  Woodbine,  the  Hirsch  colony,  es- 
pecially so,  with  its  agricultural  school  that  has  set 
out  upon  the  mission  of  turning  the  Jew  back  to  the 
soil  from  which  he  has  been  barred  so  long.  Its 
pupils  came  out  of  the  sweat  shops  and  the  tene- 
ment barracks  of  the  Ghetto,  and  a  likelier  lot  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  find.  One  can  but  wish  that 
the  hopes  of  their  friends  may  be  realized  in  fullest 
measure.     They  have  put  their  hands  to  a  task  that 


214  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

seems  like  turning   back    the    finger   of   time,  and 
snags  of  various  kinds  beset  their  way. 

I  remember  the  President  of  the  Board  coming 
into  my  office  one  day  with  despair  written  all  over 
him :  of  a  hundred  families,  carefully  picked  to  go 
into  the  country  where  homes  and  work  awaited 
them,  when  it  came  to  the  actual  departure  only 
seven  wanted  to  go.  It  was  the  old  story  of  objec- 
tion to  "  the  society  of  the  stump."  They  wanted 
the  crowds,  the  bands,  the  kosher  butcher  shops, 
the  fake  auction  stores,  and  the  synagogues  they 
were  used  to.  They  have  learned  a  lesson  from 
that  in  the  Jersey  colonies,  and  are  building  enter- 
tainment halls  for  the  social  life  that  is  to  keep 
them  together.  Only  a  year  or  so  ago  an  attempt 
at  home-building,  much  nearer  New  York,  at  New 
Orange,  just  over  the  hills  in  Jersey,  came  to  an 
abrupt  end.  It  left  out  the  farming  end,  aiming 
merely  at  the  removal  of  needle  workers  from  the 
city  with  their  factory.  A  building  was  put  up  for 
a  large  New  York  tailoring  firm,  and  it  moved  over 
bodily  with  its  men  —  that  is,  with  such  as  were 
willing  to  go.  Work  was  plentiful  in  the  city,  and 
they  were  not  all  ready  to  surrender  the  tenement 
for  the  sake  of  a  home  upon  the  land,  though  a  very 
attractive  little  cottage  awaited  them  on  singularly 
easy  terms.  However  that  was  almost  got  over 
when  the  firm  suddenly  threw  up  the  contract.     It 


ON   WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT   THE  DOOR?        215 

proved  to  be  costlier  for  them  to  manufacture  away 
from  the  city,  and  they  could  not  compete. 

If  there  is  yet  an  element  of  doubt  about  the 
Jew  as  a  colonist,  there  is  none  about  his  ability 
to  make  ends  meet  as  an  individual  farmer,  given  a 
fair  chance.  More  than  a  thousand  such  are  now 
scattered  through  the  New  England  states  and  the 
dairy  counties  of  New  York.  The  Jewish  Agricul- 
tural Aid  Societies  of  New  York  and  Chicago  gave 
them  their  start,  and  report  decided  progress.  The 
farmers  are  paying  their  debts  and  laying  away 
money.  As  a  dairy  farmer  or  poultry  raiser  the  Jew 
has  more  of  an  immediate  commercial  grip  on  the 
situation  and  works  with  more  courage  than  if  he 
has  to  wait  for  long,  uncertain  crops.  In  Sullivan 
and  Ulster  counties,  New  York,  a  hundred  Jewish 
farmers  keep  summer  boarders  besides,  and  are  on 
the  highroad  to  success.  Very  recently  the  New 
York  society  has  broken  new  paths  upon  an  indi- 
vidual "  removal  plan,"  started  by  the  B'nai  B'rith  in 
1900.  Agents  are  sent  throughout  the  country 
to  make  arrangements  with  Jewish  communities 
for  the  reception  of  workers  from  the  Ghetto ;  and 
so  successful  have  been  these  efforts  that  at  this 
writing  some  five  thousand  have  been  moved  singly 
and  scattered  over  the  country  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific  —  that  is,  in  not  yet  three  years 
since   the   beginning.     They   are   carefully  looked 


2l6  THE    BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

after,  and  the  reports  show  that  over  eighty  per 
cent  of  all  do  well  in  their  new  surroundings.  This 
result  has  been  wrought  at  a  per  capita  expense  of 
twelve  dollars,  not  a  very  great  sum  for  such  a 
work. 

In  its  bold  outline  the  movement  contemplates 
nothing  less  than  the  draining  of  the  Ghetto  by  the 
indirect  process  of  which  I  spoke.  "The  importance 
of  it,"  says  the  Removal  Committee  in  its  report 
for  1 90 1,  "is  found,  not  in  the  numbers  removed,  but 
in  the  inauguration  of  the  movement,  ^which  should 
and  must  be  greatly  extended,  and  which  is  declared 
to  be  of  far-reaching  significance.  The  experience 
of  past  years  has  proven  that  almost  every  family 
removed  becomes  a  centre  around  which  immedi- 
ately and  with  ever  increasing  force  others  congre- 
gate. The  committee  in  charge  of  the  Russian 
immigration  in  1890,  1891,  etc.,  has  evidence  that 
cities  and  towns,  to  which  but  a  very  small  number 
of  newly  arrived  immigrants  were  sent,  have  become 
the  centres  of  large  Russian-Jewish  communities. 
No  argument  is  needed  to  emphasize  this  statement." 

It  is  pleasing  to  be  told  that  the  office  of  the 
Removal  Committee  has  been  besieged  by  eager 
applicants  from  the  beginning.  So  light  is  breaking 
also  in  that  dark  corner. 

There  is  enough  of  it  everywhere,  if  one  will  only 
look  away   from   the  slum   to  those  it  holds  fast. 


ON   WHOM   SHALL   WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR?        2\^ 

"  The  people  are  all  right,"  was  the  unvarying  re- 
port of  the  early  Tenement  House  Committees,  "if 
we  only  give  them  half  a  chance."  When  the 
country  was  in  the  throes  of  the  silver  campaign, 
the  newspapers  told  the  story  of  an  old  laborer 
who  went  to  the  sub-treasury  and  demanded  to 
see  the  "boss."  He  undid  the  strings  of  an  old 
leathern  purse  with  fumbling  fingers,  and  counted 
out  more  than  two  hundred  dollars  in  gold  eagles, 
the  hoard  of  a  lifetime  of  toil  and  self-denial. 
They  were  for  the  government,  he  said.  He  had 
not  the  head  to  understand  all  the  talk  that  was 
going  on,  but  he  gathered  from  what  he  heard  that 
the  government  was  in  trouble,  and  that  somehow 
it  was  about  not  having  gold  enough.  So  he  had 
brought  what  he  had.  He  owed  it  all  to  the 
country,  and  now  that  she  needed  it  he  had  come 
to  give  it  back. 

The  man  was  an  Irishman.  Very  likely  he  was 
enrolled  in  Tammany  and  voted  its  ticket.  I 
remember  a  tenement  at  the  bottom  of  a  back 
alley,  over  on  the  East  Side,  where  I  once  went 
visiting  with  the  pastor  of  a  mission  chapel.  Up 
in  the  attic  there  was  a  family  of  father  and  daugh- 
ter in  two  rooms  that  had  been  made  out  of  one 
by  dividing  off  the  deep  dormer  window.  It  was 
midwinter,  and  they  had  no  fire.  He  was  a  ped- 
ler,  but   the  snow  had   stalled   his   push-cart,  and 


2l8  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

robbed  them  of  their  only  other  source  of  income, 
a  lodger  who  hired  cot  room  in  the  attic  for  a 
few  cents  a  night.  The  daughter  was  not  able  to 
work.  But  she  said,  cheerfully,  that  they  were 
"  getting  along."  When  it  came  out  that  she  had 
not  tasted  solid  food  for  many  days,  was  starving 
in  fact,  —  indeed,  she  died  within  a  year,  of  the 
slow  starvation  of  the  tenements  that  parades  in 
the  mortality  returns  under  a  variety  of  scientific 
names  which  all  mean  the  same  thing,  —  she  met 
her  pastor's  gentle  chiding  with  the  excuse :  "  Oh, 
your  church  has  many  that  are  poorer  than  I.  I 
don't  want  to  take  your  money." 

These  were  Germans,  ordinarily  held  to  be  close- 
fisted  ;  but  I  found  that  in  their  dire  distress  they 
had  taken  in  a  poor  old  man  who  was  past  working, 
and  kept  him  all  winter,  sharing  with  him  what  they 
had.  He  was  none  of  theirs  ;  they  hardly  even  knew 
him,  as  it  appeared.  It  was  enough  that  he  was 
"  poorer  than  they,"  and  lonely  and  hungry  and  cold. 

It  was  over  here  that  the  children  of  Mr.  Elsing's 
Sunday-school  gave  out  of  the  depth  of  their  pov- 
erty fifty-four  dollars  in  pennies  to  be  hung  on  the 
Christmas  tree  as  their  offering  to  the  persecuted 
Armenians.  One  of  their  teachers  told  me  of  a 
Bohemian  family  that  let  the  holiday  dinner  she 
brought  them  stand  and  wait,  while  they  sent  out 
to  bid    to    the  feast   four  little  ragamuffins   of   the 


ON   WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR  ? 


219 


neighborhood  who  else  would  have  gone  hungry. 
And  here  it  was  in  "  the  hard  winter  "  when  no  one 
had  work,  that  the  nurse  from  the  Henry  Street 
settlement  found    her  cobbler  patient    entertaining 


'%* 

-^m 

'^^^^K^I^^^^K^Ki        ^Hi''-"*^^^^^^H 

liffl 

1  :•*;  ;/n  "a 

The  Children's  Christmas  Tree. 


a  lodger,  with  barely  bread  in  the  house  for  himself 
and  his  boy.  He  introduced  the  stranger  with 
some  embarrassment,  and  when  they  were  alone, 
excused  himself  for  doing  it.  The  man  was  just 
from  prison  —  a  man  with  "a  history." 


220  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

"  But,"  said  the  nurse,  doubtfully,  "  is  it  a  good 
thing  for  your  boy  to  have  that  man  in  the 
house  ? " 

There  was  a  passing  glimpse  of  uneasiness  in  the 
cobbler's  glance,  but  it  went  as  quickly  as  it  had 
come.  He  laid  his  hand  upon  the  nurse's.  "  This," 
he  said,  "ain't  no  winter  to  let  a  fellow  from  Sing 
Sing  be  on  the  street." 

I  might  keep  on,  and  fill  many  pages  with  in- 
stances of  such  kind,  which  simply  go  to  prove 
that  our  poor  human  nature  is  at  least  as  robust 
on  Avenue  A  as  up  on  Fifth  Avenue,  if  it  has  half 
a  chance,  and  often  enough  with  no  chance  at  all ; 
and  I  might  set  over  against  it  the  product  of 
sordid  and  mean  environment  which  one  has  never 
far  to  seek.  Good  and  evil  go  together  in  the 
tenements  as  in  the  fine  houses,  and  the  evil 
sticks  out  sometimes  merely  because  it  lies  nearer 
the  surface.  The  point  is  that  the  good  does 
outweigh  the  bad,  and  that  the  virtues  that  turn 
the  balance  are  after  all  those  that  make  for  man- 
hood and  good  citizenship  anywhere ;  while  the 
faults  are  oftenest  the  accidents  of  ignorance  and 
lack  of  training,  which  it  is  the  business  of  society 
to  correct.  I  recall  my  discouragement  when  I 
looked  over  the  examination  papers  of  a  batch  of 
candidates  for  police  appointment,  —  young  men 
largely   the  product  of  our  public  schools  in  this 


ON   WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT  THE   DOOR?         221 

city  and  elsewhere,  —  and  read  in  them  that  five  of 
the  original  New  England  states  were  "  England, 
Ireland,  Scotland,  Belfast,  and  Cork " ;  that  the 
Fire  Department  ruled  New  York  in  the  absence 
of  the  mayor,  —  I  have  sometimes  wished  it  did, 
and  that  he  would  stay  away  awhile,  while  they 
turned  the  hose  on  at  the  City  Hall  to  make  a  clean 
job  of  it,  —  and  that  Lincoln  was  murdered  by 
Ballington  Booth.  But  we  shall  agree,  no  doubt, 
that  the  indictment  of  those  papers  was  not  of  the 
men  who  wrote  them,  but  of  the  school  that  stuffed, 
its  pupils  with  useless  trash,  and  did  not  teach  them 
to  think.  Neither  have  I  forgotten  that  it  was  one 
of  these  very  men  who,  having  failed  and  afterward 
got  a  job  as  a  bridge  policeman,  on  his  first  pay  day 
went  straight  from  his  post,  half  frozen  as  he  was, 
to  the  settlement  worker  who  had  befriended  him 
and  his  sick  father,  and  gave  him  five  dollars  for 
"some  one  who  was  poorer  than  they."  Poorer 
than  they !  What  worker  among  the  poor  has  not 
heard  it.^*  It  is  the  charity  of  the  tenement  that 
covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  There  were  thirteen 
in  this  policeman's  family,  and  his  wages  were  the 
biggest  item  of  income  in  the  house. 

Jealousy,  envy,  and  meanness  wear  no  fine 
clothes  and  masquerade  under  no  smooth  speeches 
in  the  slums.  Often  enough  it  is  the  very  naked- 
ness of  the  virtues  that   makes  us  stumble  in  our 


222  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

judgment.  I  have  in  mind  the  "difficult  case  "  that 
confronted  some  philanthropic  friends  of  mine  in 
a  rear  tenement  on  Twelfth  Street,  in  the  person 
of  an  aged  widow,  quite  seventy  I  should  think, 
who  worked  uncomplainingly  for  a  sweater  all  day 
and  far  into  the  night,  pinching  and  saving  and 
stinting  herself,  with  black  bread  and  chickory 
coffee  as  her  only  fare,  in  order  that  she  might 
carry  her  pitiful  earnings  to  her  big,  lazy  lout  of  a 
son  in  Brooklyn.  He  never  worked.  My  friends' 
difficulty  was  a  very  real  one,  for  absolutely  every 
attempt  to  relieve  the  widow  was  wrecked  upon  her 
mother  heart.  It  all  went  over  the  river.  Yet 
would  you  have  had  her  different  ? 

Sometimes  it  is  only  the  unfamiliar  setting  that 
shocks.  When  an  East  Side  midnight  burglar,  dis- 
covered and  pursued,  killed  a  tenant  who  blocked 
his  way  of  escape,  not  long  ago,  his  "  girl "  gave 
him  up  to  the  police.  But  it  was  not  because  he 
had  taken  human  life.  "  He  was  good  to  me,"  she 
explained  to  the  captain  whom  she  told  where  to 
find  him,  "but  since  he  robbed  the  church  I  had 
no  use  for  him."  He  had  stolen,  it  seems,  the  com- 
munion service  in  a  Staten  Island  church.  The 
thoughtless  laughed.  But  in  her  ignorant  way  she 
was  only  trying  to  apply  the  ethical  standards  she 
knew.  Our  servant,  pondering  if  the  fortune 
she  was  told  is  "  real  good  "  at  fifteen  cents,  when 


ON   WHOM   SHALL   WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR  ?         223 

it  should  have  cost  her  twenty-five  by  right,  only 
she  told  the  fortune-teller  she  had  only  fifteen,  and 
lied  in  telling,  is  doing  the  same  after  her  fashion. 
Stunted,  bemuddled,  as  their '  standards  were,  I 
think  I  should  prefer  to  take  my  chances  with 
either  rather  than  with  the  woman  of  wealth  and 
luxury  who  gave  a  Christmas  party  to  her  lap-dog, 
as  on  the  whole  the  sounder  and  by  far  the  more 
hopeful. 

All  of  which  is  merely  saying  that  the  country 
is  all  right,  and  the  people  are  to  be  trusted  with 
the  old  faith  in  spite  of  the  slum.  And  it  is  true, 
if  we  remember  to  put  it  that  way,  —  in  spite  of  the 
slum.  There  is  nothing  in  the  slum  to  warrant 
that  faith  save  human  nature  as  yet  uncorrupted. 
How  long  it  is  to  remain  so  is  altogether  a  ques- 
tion of  the  sacrifices  we  are  willing  to  make  in  our 
fight  with  the  slum.  As  yet,  we  are  told  by  the 
officials  having  to  do  with  the  enforcement  of  the 
health  ordinances,  which  come  closer  to  the  life 
of  the  individual  than  any  other  kind,  that  the  poor 
in  the  tenements  are  "more  amenable  to  the  law 
than  the  better  class."  It  is  of  the  first  importance, 
then,  that  we  should  have  laws  deserving  of  their 
respect,  and  that  these  laws  should  be  enforced,  lest 
they  conclude  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  sham. 
Respect  for  law  is  a  very  powerful  bar  against  the 
slum.     But  what,  for  instance,  must  the  poor  Jew 


224  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

understand,  who  is  permitted  to  buy  a  live  hen  at 
the  market,  but  neither  to  kill  nor  keep  it  in  his 
tenement,  and  who  on  his  feast  day  finds  a  whole 
squad  of  policemen  detailed  to  follow  him  around 
and  see  that  he  does  not  do  any  of  the  things  with 
his  fowl  for  which  he  must  have  bought  it  ?  Or 
the  day  laborer,  who  drinks  his  beer  in  a  "  Raines 
law  hotel,"  where  brick  sandwiches,  consisting  of 
two  pieces  of  bread  with  a  brick  between,  are  set  out 
on  the  counter,  in  derision  of  the  state  law  which 
forbids  the  serving  of  drinks  without  "meals "?^ 
The  Stanton  Street  saloon  keeper  who  did  that 
was  solemnly  acquitted  by  a  jury.  Or  the  boy,  who 
may  buy  fireworks  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  but  not 
set  them  off?  These  are  only  ridiculous  instances 
of  an  abuse  that  pervades  our  community  life  to  an 
extent  which  constitutes  one  of  its  gravest  perils. 
Insincerity  of  that  kind  is  not  lost  on  our  fellow- 
citizen  by  adoption,  who   is    only  anxious   to   fall 

^  The  following  is  from  the  New  York  Herald  of  April  8,  1902 : 
One  of  the  strangest  sandwich  complications  so  far  recorded  occurred 
in  a  saloon  in  Columbia  Street,  Brooklyn,  on  Sunday.  A  boy  rushed 
into  the  Amity  Street  police  station  at  noon,  declaring  that  two  men  in 
the  saloon  were  killing  each  other.  Two  policemen  ran  to  the  place, 
and  found  the  bartender  and  a  customer  pummelling  each  other  on  the 
floor.  When  the  men  had  been  separated  the  police  learned  that  the 
trouble  had  arisen  from  the  attempt  of  the  customer  to  eat  the  sandwich 
which  had  been  served  with  his  drink.  The  barkeeper  objected,  and, 
finding  remonstrance  in  vain,  resorted  to  physical  force  to  rescue  the 
sandwich  from  the  clutches  of  the  hungry  stranger.  The  police  re- 
stored the  sandwich  to  the  bartender  and  made  no  arrests. 


ON   WHOM   SHALL  WE   SHUT   THE   DOOR  ?         225 

in  with  the  ways  of  the  country;  and  especially 
is  it  not  lost  on  his  boy. 

We  shall  see  how  it  affects  him.  He  is  the  one 
for  whom  we  are  waging  the  battle  with  the  slum. 
He  is  the  to-morrow  that  sits  to-day  drinking  in 
the  lesson  of  the  prosperity  of  the  big  boss  who 
declared  with  pride  upon  the  witness  stand  that 
he  rules  New  York,  that  judges  pay  him  tribute, 
and  that  only  when  he  says  so  a  thing  "  goes  " ;  and 
that  he  is  "working  for  his  own  pocket  all  the  time 
just  the  same  as  everybody  else."  He  sees  corpora- 
tions pay  blackmail  and  rob  the  people  in  return, 
quite  according  to  the  schedule  of  Hester  Street. 
Only  there  it  is  the  police  who  charge  the  pedler 
twenty  cents,  while  here  it  is  the  politicians  taking 
toll  of  the  franchises,  twenty  per  cent.  Wall  Street 
is  not  ordinarily  reckoned  in  the  slum,  because  of 
certain  physical  advantages ;  but,  upon  the  evi- 
dence of  the  day,  I  think  we  shall  have  to  conclude 
that  the  advantage  ends  there.  The  boy  who  is 
learning  such  lessons,  —  how  is  it  with  him.'* 

The  president  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention 
of  Cruelty  to  Children  says  that  children's  crime  is 
increasing,  and  he  ought  to  know.  The  managers 
of  the  Children's  Aid  Society,  after  nearly  fifty  years 
of  wrestling  with  the  slum  for  the  boy,  in  which  they 
have  lately  seemed  to  get  the  upper  hand,  said  re- 
cently, that  on  the  East  Side  children  are  growing  up 

Q 


226  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

in  certain  districts  "  entirely  neglected,"  and  that  the 
number  of  such  children  "increases  beyond  the 
power  of  philanthropic  and  religious  bodies  to  cope 
properly  with  their  needs."  In  the  Tompkins 
Square  Lodging  House  the  evening  classes  were 
thinning  out,  and  the  keeper  wailed,  "  Those  with 
whom  we  have  dealt  of  late  have  not  been  inclined 
to  accept  this  privilege ;  how  to  make  night  school 
attractive  to  shiftless,  indifferent  street  boys  is  a 
difficult  problem  to  solve." 

Perhaps  it  was  only  that  he  had  lost  the  key. 
Across  the  square,  the  Boys'  Club  of  St.  Mark's 
Place,  that  began  with  a  handful,  counts  seven  thou- 
sand members  to-day,  and  is  building  a  house  of  its 
own.  The  school  census  man  announces  that  no 
boy  in  that  old  stronghold  of  the  "  bread  or  blood  " 
brigade  need  henceforth  loiter  in  the  street  because 
of  there  not  being  room  in  the  public  school,  and 
the  brigade  has  disbanded  for  want  of  recruits.  The 
factory  is  being  more  and  more  firmly  shut  against 
the  boy,  and  the  bars  let  down  at  the  playground. 
From  Tompkins  Square,  nevertheless,  came  Jacob 
Beresheim,  whose  story  let  me  stop  here  to  tell 
you. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    GENESIS    OF   THE    GANG 

Jacob  Beresheim  was  fifteen  when  he  was 
charged  with  murder.  It  is  now  more  than  six 
years  ago,  but  the  touch  of  his  hand  is  cold  upon 
mine,  with  mortal  fear,  as  I  write.  Every  few  min- 
utes, during  our  long  talk  on  the  night  of  his  arrest 
and  confession,  he  would  spring  to  his  feet,  and, 
clutching  my  arm  as  a  drowning  man  catches  at  a 
rope,  demand  with  shaking  voice,  "  Will  they  give 
me  the  chair  ?  "  The  assurance  that  boys  were  not 
executed  quieted  him  only  for  the  moment.  Then 
the  dread  and  the  horror  were  upon  him  again. 

Of  his  crime  the  less  said  the  better.  It  was  the 
climax  of  a  career  of  depravity  that  differed  from 
other  such  chiefly  in  the  opportunities  afforded  by 
an  environment  which  led  up  to  and  helped  shape 
it.  My  business  is  with  that  environment.  The 
man  is  dead,  the  boy  in  jail.  But  unless  I  am  to  be 
my  brother's  jail  keeper  merely,  the  iron  bars  do  not 
square  the  account  of  Jacob  with  society.  Society 
exists  for  the  purpose  of  securing  justice  to  its  mem- 
bers, appearances  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

227 


228  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

When  it  fails  in  this,  the  item  is  carried  on  the 
ledger  with  interest  and  compound  interest  toward 
a  day  of  reckoning  that  comes  surely  with  the  pay- 
master. We  have  heard  the  chink  of  his  coin  on 
the  counter,  these  days,  in  the  unblushing  revela- 
tions before  legislative  investigating  committees  of 
degraded  citizenship,  of  the  murder  of  the  civic 
conscience,  and  in  the  applause  that  hailed  them 
from  the  unthinking  crowd.  And  we  have  begun 
to  understand  that  these  are  the  interest  on  Jacob's 
account,  older,  much  older,  than  himself.  He  is 
just  an  item  carried  on  the  ledger.  But  with  that 
knowledge  the  account  is  at  last  in  the  way  of  get- 
ting squared.     Let  us  see  how  it  stands. 

We  shall  take  Jacob  as  a  type  of  the  street  boy 
on  the  East  Side,  where  he  belonged.  What  does 
not  apply  to  him  in  the  review  applies  to  his  class. 
But  there  was  very  little  of  it  indeed  that  he  missed 
or  that  missed  him. 

He  was  born  in  a  tenement  in  that  section  where 
the  Gilder  Tenement  House  Commission  found 
324,000  persons  living  out  of  sight  and  reach  of  a 
green  spot  of  any  kind,  and  where  sometimes  the 
buildings  —  front,  middle,  and  rear — took  up  ninety- 
three  per  cent  of  all  the  space  in  the  block.  Such 
a  home  as  he  had  was  there,  and  of  the  things  that 
belonged  to  it  he  was  the  heir.  The  sunlight  was 
not  among  them.    It  "  never  entered  "  there.    Dark- 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG 


229 


ness  and  discouragement  did,  and  dirt.  Later  on, 
when  he  took  to  the  dirt  as  his  natural  weapon  in 
his  battles  with  society,  it  was  said  of  him  that  it 
was  the  only  friend  that  stuck  to  him,  and  it  was 
true.  Very  early  the  tenement  gave  him  up  to  the 
street.  The  thing  he  took  with  him  as  the  one 
legacy  of  home  was  the  instinct  for  the  crowd, 
which  meant  that  the  tene- 
ment had  wrought  its  worst 
mischief  upon  him ;  it  had 
smothered  that  in  him  around 
which  character  is  built.  The 
more  readily  did  he  fall  in 
with  the  street  and  its  ways. 
Character  implies  depth,  a 
soil,  and  growth.  The  street 
is  all  surface.  Nothing  grows 
there ;  it  hides  only  a  sewer. 
It  taught  him  gambling  as 

its    first    lesson,    and    stealing  Jacob  Beresheim. 

as  the  next.  The  two  are  never  far  apart.  From 
shooting  craps  behind  the  "  cop's  "  back  to  filching 
from  the  grocer's  stock  or  plundering  a  defence- 
less pedler  is  only  a  step.  There  is  in  both  the 
spice  of  law-breaking  that  appeals  to  the  shallow 
ambition  of  the  street  as  heroic.  At  the  very  time 
when  the  adventurous  spirit  is  growing  in  the  boy, 
and  his  games  are  all  of   daring,  of   chasing  and 


■ 
I 

w 

^ 

^H^^    iff 

^^ 

^PF 

"^     n^^^ 

11 

^^^^^^^1 

230  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

being  chased,  the  policeman  looms  up  to  take  a 
hand,  and  is  hailed  with  joyful  awe.  Occasionally 
the  raids  have  a  comic  tinge.  A  German  grocer 
wandered  into  police  headquarters  with  an  appeal 
for  protection  against  the  boys. 

"Vat  means  dot  'cheese  it'.f*"  he  asked,  rubbing 
his  bald  head  in  helpless  bewilderment.  "  Efery 
dime  dey  says  'cheese  it,'  somedings  vas  gone." 

To  the  lawlessness  of  the  street  the  home  opposes 
no  obstacle,  as  we  have  seen.  Within  the  memory 
of  most  of  us  the  school  did  not.  It  might  have 
more  to  offer  even  now.  But  we  have  gone  such  a 
long  way  since  the  day  I  am  thinking  of  that  I  am 
not  going  to  find  fault.  I  used  to  think  that  some 
of  them  needed  to  be  made  over,  until  they  were 
fit  to  turn  out  whole,  sound  boys,  instead  of  queer 
manikins  stuffed  with  information  for  which  they 
have  no  use,  and  which  is  none  of  their  business 
anyhow.  It  seemed  to  me,  sometimes,  when  watch- 
ing the  process  of  cramming  the  school  course  with 
the  sum  of  human  knowledge  and  conceit,  as  if  it 
all  meant  that  we  distrusted  Nature's  way  of  grow- 
ing a  man  from  a  boy,  and  had  set  out  to  show  her 
a  shorter  cut.  A  common  result  was  the  kind  of 
mental  befogment  that  had  Abraham  Lincoln 
murdered  by  Ballington  Booth,  and  a  superficiality, 
a  hopeless  slurring  of  tasks,  that  hitched  perfectly 
with  the  spirit  of   the  street,  and    left  nothing  to 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG  23 1 

be  explained  in  the  verdict  of  the  reformatory, 
"No  moral  sense."  There  was  no  moral  sense  to 
be  got  out  of  the  thing,  for  there  was  little  sense  of 
any  kind  in  it.  The  boy  was  not  given  a  chance 
to  be  honest  with  himself  by  thinking  a  thing 
through  ;  he  came  naturally  to  accept  as  his  mental 
horizon  the  headlines  in  his  penny  paper  and  the 
literature  of  the  Dare-Devil-Dan-the-Death-Dealing- 
Monster-of-Dakota  order,  which  comprise  the  ordi- 
nary aesthetic  equipment  of  the  slum.  The  mystery 
of  his  further  development  into  the  tough  need  not 
perplex  anybody. 

But  Jacob  Beresheim  had  not  even  the  benefit  of 
such  schooling  as  there  was  to  be  had.  He  did  not 
go  to  school,  and  nobody  cared.  There  was  indeed 
a  law  directing  that  every  child  should  go,  and  a 
corps  of  truant  officers  to  catch  him  if  he  did  not ; 
but  the  law  had  been  a  dead  letter  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  There  was  no  census  to  tell  which  chil- 
dren ought  to  be  in  school,  and  no  place  but  a  jail 
to  put  those  in  who  shirked.  Jacob  was  allowed  to 
drift.  From  the  time  he  was  twelve  till  he  was  fif- 
teen, he  told  me,  he  might  have  gone  to  school  three 
weeks,  —  no  more. 

Church  and  Sunday-school  missed  him.  I  was 
going  to  say  that  they  passed  by  on  the  other  side, 
remembering  the  migration  of  the  churches  up-town 
as  the  wealthy  moved  out  of  and  the  poor  into  the 


232  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

region  south  of  Fourteenth  Street.  But  that  would 
hardly  be  fair.  They  moved  after  their  congrega- 
tions ;  but  they  left  nothing  behind.  In  the  twenty 
years  that  followed  the  war,  while  enough  to  people 
a  large  city  moved  in  down-town,  the  number  of 
churches  there  was  reduced  from  141  to  127. 
Fourteen  Protestant  churches  moved  out.  Only 
two  Roman  Catholic  churches  and  a  synagogue 
moved  in.  I  am  not  aware  that  there  has  been  any 
large  increase  of  churches  in  the  district  since,  but 
we  have  seen  that  the  crowding  has  not  slackened 
pace.  Jacob  had  no  trouble  in  escaping  the  Sun- 
day-school, as  he  had  escaped  the  public  school. 
His  tribe  will  have  none  until  the  responsibility 
incurred  in  the  severance  of  Church  and  State  sits 
less  lightly  on  a  Christian  community,  and  the 
Church,  from  a  mob,  shall  have  become  an  army, 
with  von  Moltke's  plan  of  campaign,  "  March  apart, 
fight  together."  The  Christian  Church  is  not  alone 
in  its  failure.  The  Jew's  boy  is  breaking  away  from 
safe  moorings  rather  faster  than  his  brother  of  the 
new  dispensation.  The  Church  looks  on,  but  it  has 
no  cause  for  congratulation.  He  is  getting  nothing 
in  place  of  that  which  he  lost,  and  the  result  is  bad. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  profound  theories  about  it. 
The  facts  are  plain  enough.  The  new  freedom  has 
something  to  do  with  it ;  but  neglect  to  look  after 
the  young  has  quite  as  much.     Apart  from  its  reli- 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG  233 

gious  aspect,  seen  from  the  angle  of  the  community's 
interest  wholly,  the  matter  is  of  the  gravest  import. 
What  the  boy's  play  has  to  do  with  building 
character  in  him  Froebel  has  told  us.  Through 
it,  he  showed  us,  the  child  "  first  perceives  moral 
relations,"  and  he  made  that  the  basis  of  the  kinder- 
garten and  all  common-sense  education.  That  prop 
was  knocked  out.  New  York  never  had  a  chil- 
dren's playground  till  within  the  last  three  years. 
Truly  it  seemed,  as  Abram  S.  Hewitt  said,  as  if  in 
the  early  plan  of  our  city  the  children  had  not  been 
thought  of  at  all.  Such  moral  relations  as  Jacob 
was  able  to  make  out  ran  parallel  with  the  gutter 
always,  and  counter  to  law  and  order  as  represented 
by  the  policeman  and  the  landlord.  The  landlord 
had  his  windows  to  mind,  and  the  policeman  his 
lamps  and  the  city  ordinances  which  prohibit  even 
kite-flying  below  Fourteenth  Street  where  the  crowds 
are.  The  ball  had  no  chance  at  all.  We  have  seen 
in  New  York  a  boy  shot  down  by  a  policeman  for 
the  heinous  offence  of  playing  football  in  the  street 
on  Thanksgiving  Day.  But  a  boy  who  cannot  kick 
a  ball  around  has  no  chance  of  growing  up  a  decent 
and  orderly  citizen.  He  must  have  his  childhood, 
so  that  he  may  be  fitted  to  give  to  the  community 
his  manhood.  The  average  boy  is  just  like  a  little 
steam-engine  with  steam  always  up.  The  play  is 
his  safety-valve.     With  the  landlord  in  the  yard  and 


234  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

the  policeman  on  the  street  sitting  on  his  safety- 
valve  and  holding  it  down,  he  is  bound  to  explode. 
When  he  does,  when  he  throws  mud  and  stones,  and 
shows  us  the  side  of  him  which  the  gutter  developed, 
we  are  shocked,  and  marvel  much  what  our  boys  are 
coming  to,  as  if  we  had  any  right  to  expect  better 
treatment  of  them.  I  doubt  if  Jacob,  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  wizened  little  life,  had  ever  a  hand  in 
an  honest  game  that  was  not  haunted  by  the  spectre 
of  the  avenging  policeman.  That  he  was  not 
"  doing  anything "  was  no  defence.  The  mere 
claim  was  proof  that  he  was  up  to  mischief  of  some 
sort.  Besides,  the  policeman  was  usually  right. 
Play  in  such  a  setting  becomes  a  direct  incentive 
to  mischief  in  a  healthy  boy.  Jacob  was  a  healthy 
enough  little  animal. 

Such  fun  as  he  had  he  got  out  of  law-breaking 
in  a  small  way.  In  this  he  was  merely  following 
the  ruling  fashion.  Laws  were  apparently  made  for 
no  other  purpose  that  he  could  see.  Such  a  view 
as  he  enjoyed  of  their  makers  and  executors  at 
election  seasons  inspired  him  with  seasonable  en- 
thusiasm, but  hardly  with  awe.  A  slogan,  now, 
like  that  raised  by  Tammany's  late  candidate  for 
district  attorney,^  —  "  To  hell  with  reform  !  "  — 
was  something  he  could  grasp.  Of  what  reform 
meant  he   had  only  the  vaguest   notion,  but  this 

^  In  the  first  Greater  New  York  election. 


THE  GENESIS   OF   THE   GANG  235 

thing  had  the  right  ring  to  it.  Roosevelt  preach- 
ing enforcement  of  law  was  from  the  first  a  "  lob- 
ster" to  him,  not  to  be  taken  seriously.  It  is  not 
among  the  least  of  the  merits  of  the  man  that, 
by  his  sturdy  personality,  as  well  as  by  his  un- 
yielding persistence,  he  won  the  boy  over  to  the 
passive  admission  that  there  might  be  something 
in  it.     It  had  not  been  his  experience. 

There  was  the  law  which  sternly  commanded 
him  to  go  to  school,  and  which  he  laughed  at 
every  day.  Then  there  was  the  law  to  prevent 
child  labor.  It  cost  twenty-five  cents  for  a  false 
age  certificate  to  break  that,  and  Jacob,  if  he 
thought  of  it  at  all,  probably  thought  of  perjury 
as  rather  an  expensive  thing.  A  quarter  was  a 
good  deal  to  pay  for  the  right  to  lock  a  child  up 
in  a  factory,  when  he  ought  to  have  been  at  play. 
The  excise  law  was  everybody's  game.  The  sign 
that  hung  in  every  saloon,  saying  that  nothing 
was  sold  there  to  minors,  never  yet  barred  out  his 
"  growler "  when  he  had  the  price.  There  was 
another  such  sign  in  the  tobacco  shop,  forbidding 
the  sale  of  cigarettes  to  boys  of  his  age.  Jacob 
thought  that  when  he  had  the  money  he  smoked 
as  many  as  fifteen  packs  a  day,  and  he  laughed 
when  he  told  me.  He  laughed,  too,  when  he 
remembered  how  the  boys  of  the  East  Side  took 
to  carrying  balls  of  cord  in  their  pockets,  on   the 


236  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

wave  of  the  Lexow  reform,  on  purpose  to  meas- 
ure the  distance  from  the  school  door  to  the 
nearest  saloon.  They  had  been  told  that  it  should 
be  two  hundred  feet,  according  to  law.  There  were 
schools  that  had  as  many  as  a  dozen  within  the 
tabooed  limits.  It  was  in  the  papers  how,  when 
the  highest  courts  said  that  the  law  was  good, 
the  saloon  keepers  attacked  the  schools  as  a  nui- 
sance and  detrimental  to  property.  In  a  general 
way  Jacob  sided  with  the  saloon  keeper;  not  be- 
cause he  had  any  opinion  about  it,  but  because  it 
seemed  natural.  Such  opinions  as  he  ordinarily 
had   he   got  from   that  quarter. 

When,  later  on,  he  came  to  be  tried,  his  counsel 
said  to  me,  "  He  is  an  amazing  liar."  No,  hardly 
amazing.  It  would  have  been  amazing  if  he  had 
been  anything  else.  Lying  and  mockery  were  all 
around  him,  and  he  adjusted  himself  to  the  things 
that  were.     He  lied  in  self-defence. 

Jacob's  story  ends  here,  as  far  as  he  is  personally 
concerned.  The  story  of  the  gang  begins.  So 
trained  for  the  responsibility  of  citizenship,  robbed 
of  home  and  of  childhood,  with  every  prop  knocked 
from  under  him,  all  the  elements  that  make  for 
strength  and  character  trodden  out  in  the  making  of 
the  boy,  all  the  high  ambition  of  youth  caricatured  by 
the  slum  and  become  base  passions,  —  so  equipped 
he  comes  to  the  business  of  life.     As  a  "kid"  he 


THE  GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG 


237 


hunted  with  the  pack  in  the  street.  As  a  young 
man  he  trains  with  the  gang,  because  it  furnishes  the 
means  of  gratifying  his  inordinate  vanity ;  that  is  the 
slum's  counterfeit  of  self-esteem.  Upon  the  Jacobs 
of  other  days  there  was  a  last  hold,  —  the  father's 
authority.     Changed  conditions  have  loosened  that 


Heading  off  the  Gang.     Vacation  Playground  near  Old  Frog  Hollow. 

also.  There  is  a  time  in  every  young  man's  life 
when  he  knows  more  than  his  father.  It  is  like  the 
measles  or  the  mumps,  and  he  gets  over  it,  with 
a  little  judicious  firmness  in  the  hand  that  guides. 
It  is  the  misfortune  of  the  slum  boy  of  to-day  that 
it  is  really  so,  and  that  he  knows  it.  His  father  is 
an  Italian  or  a  Jew,  and  cannot  even  speak  the  Ian- 


238  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

guage  to  which  the  boy  is  born.  He  has  to  depend 
on  him  in  much,  in  the  new  order  of  things.  The 
old  man  is  "  slow,"  he  is  *'  Dutch."  He  may  be 
an  Irishman  with  some  advantages;  he  is  still  a 
"  foreigner."     He  loses  his  grip  on  the  boy. 

Ethical  standards  of  which  he  has  no  conception 
clash.  Watch  t;lie  rneeting  of  two  currents  in  river 
or  bay,  and  se^^^the  line  of  drift  that  tells  of  the 
struggle.  So  in  the  city's  life  strive  the  currents  of 
the  old  and  the  new,  and  in  the  churning  the  boy 
goes  adrift.  The  last  hold  upon  him  is  gone.  That 
is  why  the  gang  appears  in  the  second  generation, 
the  first  born  upon  the  soil,  —  a  fighting  gang  if  the 
Irishman  is  there  with  his  ready  fist,  a  thievish  gang 
if  it  is  the  East  Side  Jew,  —  and  disappears  in  the 
third.  The  second  boy's  father  is  not  "  slow."  He 
has  had  experience.  He  was  clubbed  into  decency 
in  his  own  day,  and  the  night  stick  wore  off  the 
glamour  of  the  thing.  His  grip  on  the  boy  is  good, 
and  it  holds. 

It  depends  now  upon  chance  what  is  to  become 
of  the  lad.  But  the  slum  has  stacked  the  cards 
against  him.  There  arises  in  the  lawless  crowd 
a  leader,  who  rules  with  his  stronger  fists  or  his 
readier  wit.  Around  him  the  gang  crystallizes, 
and  what  he  is  it  becomes.  He  may  be  a  thief, 
like  David  Meyer,  a  report  of  whose  doings  I  have 
before   me.     He  was   just  a  bully,  and,  being   the 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG  239 

biggest  in  his  gang,  made  the  others  steal  for  him 
and  surrender  the  "  swag,"  or  take  a  licking.  But 
that  was  unusual.  Ordinarily  the  risk  and  the 
"  swag  "  are  distributed  on  more  democratic  princi- 
ples. Or  he  may  be  of  the  temper  of  Mike  of 
Poverty  Gap,  who  was  hanged  for  murder  at  nine- 
teen. While  he  sat  in  his  cell  at  police  head- 
quarters, he  told  with  grim  humor  of  the  raids  of 
his  gang  on  Saturday  nights  when  they  stocked 
up  at  "  the  club."  They  used  to  "  hook  "  a  butcher's 
cart  or  other  light  wagon,  wherever  found,  and  drive 
like  mad  up  and  down  the  avenue,  stopping  at 
saloon  or  grocery  to  throw  in  what  they  wanted. 
His  job  was  to  sit  at  the  tail  of  the  cart  with  a 
six-shooter  and  pop  at  any  chance  pursuer.  He 
chuckled  at  the  recollection  of  how  men  fell  over 
one  another  to  get  out  of  his  way.  "  It  was  great 
to  see  them  run,"  he  said.  Mike  was  a  tough,  but 
with  a  better  chance  he  might  have  been  a  hero. 
The  thought  came  to  him,  too,  when  it  was  all 
over  and  the  end  in  sight.  He  put  it  all  in  one 
sober,  retrospective  sigh,  that  had  in  it  no  craven 
shirking  of  the  responsibility  which  was  properly 
his :  "  I  never  had  no  bringing  up." 

There  was  a  meeting  some  time  after  his  death 
to  boom  a  scheme  for  "getting  the  boys  off  the 
street,"  and  I  happened  to  speak  of  Mike's  case.  In 
the  audience  was  a  gentleman  of  means  and  posi- 


240  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

tion,  and  his  daughter,  who  manifested  great  inter- 
est and  joined  heartily  in  the  proposed  movement. 
A  week'  later,  I  was  thunderstruck  at  reading  of 
the  arrest  of  my  sympathetic  friend's  son  for  train- 
wrecking  up  the  state.  The  fellow  was  of  the  same 
age  as  Mike.  It  appeared  that  he  was  supposed  to 
be  attending  school,  but  had  been  reading  dime 
novels  instead,  until  he  arrived  at  the  point  where 
he  "had  to  kill  some  one  before  the  end  of  the 
month."  To  that  end  he  organized  a  gang  of 
admiring  but  less  resourceful  comrades.  After  all, 
the  planes  of  fellowship  of  Poverty  Gap  and  Madison 
Avenue  lie  nearer  than  we  often  suppose.  I  set 
the  incident  down  in  justice  to  the  memory  of  my 
friend  Mike.  If  this  one  went  astray  with  so  much 
to  pull  him  the  right  way  and  but  the  single  strand 
broken,  what  then  of  the  other .? 

Mike's  was  the  day  of  Irish  heroics.  Since  their 
scene  was  shifted  from  the  East  Side,  there  has 
come  over  there  an  epidemic  of  child  crime  of 
meaner  sort,  but  following  the  same  principle  of 
gang  organization.  It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the 
exact  extent  of  it,  because  of  the  well-meant  but, 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  mistaken  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  children's  societies  to  suppress  the  record  of 
it  for  the  sake  of  the  boy.  Enough  testimony 
comes  from  the  police  and  the  courts,  however,  to 
make  it  clear   that   thieving  is  largely  on   the  in- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  GANG  241 

crease  among  the  East  Side  boys.  And  it  is  amaz- 
ing at  what  an  early  age  it  begins.  When,  in  the 
fight  for  a  truant  school,  I  had  occasion  to  gather 
statistics  upon  this  subject,  to  meet  the  sneer  of  the 
educational  authorities  that  the  "  crimes  "  of  street 
boys  compassed  at  worst  the  theft  of  a  top  or 
a  marble,  I  found  among  278  prisoners,  of  whom  I 
had  kept  the  run  for  ten  months,  two  boys,  of  four 
and  eight  years  respectively,  arrested  for  breaking 
into  a  grocery,  not  to  get  candy  or  prunes,  but 
to  rob  the  till.  The  little  one  was  useful  to 
"crawl  through  a  small  hole."  There  were  "bur- 
glars "  of  six  and  seven  years ;  and  five  in  a  bunch, 
the  whole  gang  apparently,  at  the  age  of  eight. 
"  Wild "  boys  began  to  appear  in  court  at  that 
age.  At  eleven,  I  had  seven  thieves,  two  of  whom 
had  a  record  on  the  police  blotter,  and  an  "  habit- 
ual liar  " ;  at  twelve,  I  had  four  burglars,  three  ordi- 
nary thieves,  two  arrested  for  drunkenness,  three 
for  assault,  and  three  incendiaries ;  at  thirteen,  five 
burglars,  one  with  a  "  record,"  as  many  thieves,  one 
"drunk,"  five  charged  with  assault  and  one  with 
forgery;  at  fourteen,  eleven  thieves  and  house- 
breakers, six  highway  robbers,  —  the  gang  on  its 
unlucky  day,  perhaps,  —  and  ten  arrested  for  fight- 
ing, not  counting  one  who  had  assaulted  a  police- 
man, in  a  state  of  drunken  frenzy.  One  of  the 
gangs  made  a  specialty  of  stealing  baby  carriages, 


242 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


when  they  were  left  unattended  in  front  of  stores. 
They  "  drapped  the  kids  in  the  hallway "  and 
"sneaked  "-the  carriages.  And  so  on.  The  recital 
was  not  a  pleasant  one,  but  it  was  effective.  We 
got  our  truant  school,  and  one  way  that  led  to  the 
jail  was  blocked. 


Craps. 

It  may  be  that  the  leader  is  neither  thief  nor 
thug,  but  ambitious.  In  that  case  the  gang  is 
headed  for  politics  by  the  shortest  route.  Likewise, 
sometimes,  when  he  is  both.  In  either  case  it 
carries  the  situation  by  assault.  When  the  gang 
wants  a  thing,  the  easiest  way  seems  to  it  always 


THE  GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG  243 

to  take  it.  There  was  an  explosion  in  a  Fifth 
Street  tenement,  one  winter's  night,  that  threw 
twenty  famiHes  into  a  wild  panic,  and  injured  two 
of  the  tenants  badly.  There  was  much  mystery 
about  it,  until  it  came  out  that  the  housekeeper  had 
had  a  "run  in"  with  the  gang  in  the  block.  It 
wanted  club  room  in  the  house,  and  she  would  not 
let  it  in.  Beaten,  it  avenged  itself  in  characteristic 
fashion  by  leaving  a  package  of  gunpowder  on  the 
stairs,  where  she  would  be  sure  to  find  it  when  she 
went  the  rounds  with  her  candle  to  close  up.  That 
was  a  gang  of  the  kind  I  have  reference  to,  headed 
straight  for  Albany.  And  what  is  more,  it  will  get 
there,  unless  things  change  greatly.  The  gun- 
powder was  just  a  "bluff"  to  frighten  the  house- 
keeper, an  instalment  of  the  kind  of  politics  it 
meant  to  play  when  it  got  its  chance. 

There  was  "nothing  against"  this  gang  except  a 
probable  row  with  the  saloon  keeper,  since  it  applied 
elsewhere  for  house  room.  Not  every  gang  has  a 
police  record  of  theft  and  "slugging"  beyond  the 
early  encounters  of  the  street.  "  Our  honorable 
leader"  is  not  always  the  captain  of  a  band  of  cut- 
throats. He  is  the  honorary  president  of  the 
"social  club"  that  bears  his  name,  and  he  counts 
for  something  in  the  ward.  But  the  ethical  stand- 
ards do  not  differ.  "  Do  others,  or  they  will  do 
you,"  felicitously  adapted  from  Holy  Writ  for  the 


244  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

use  of  the  slum,  and  the  classic  war-cry,  "To  the 
victor  the  spoils,"  made  over  locally  to  read,  "  I  am 
not  in  politics  for  my  health,"  still  interpret  the 
creed  of  the  political  as  of  the  "slugging"  gang. 
They  draw  their  inspiration  from  the  same  source. 
Of  what  gang  politics  mean  every  large  city  in  our 
country  has  had  its  experience.  New  York  is  no 
exception.  History  on  the  subject  is  being  made 
yet,  in  sight  of  us  all. 

Our  business  with  the  gang,  however,  is  in  the 
making  of  it.  Take  now  the  showing  of  the  re- 
formatory,^ to  which  I  have  before  made  reference, 
and  see  what  light  it  throws  upon  the  matter:  77.80 
per  cent  of  prisoners  with  no  moral  sense,  or  next 
to  none,  yet  more  than  that  proportion  possessed  of 
"good  natural  mental  capacity,"  which  is  to  say 
that  they  had  the  means  of  absorbing  it  from  their 
environment,  if  there  had  been  any  to  absorb.  Bad 
homes  sent  half  (47.79)  of  all  prisoners  there ;  bad 
company  97.60  per  cent.  The  reformatory  repeats 
the  prison  chaplain's  verdict,  "  weakness,  not  wicked- 
ness," in  its  own  way :  "  Malevolence  does  not  char- 
acterize  the    criminal,  but   aversion   to  continuous 

^"Year-Book  of  Elmira  State  Reformatory,"  1901.  The  statistics 
deal  with  10,538  prisoners  received  there  in  twenty-seven  years.  The 
social  stratum  whence  they  came  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  statement 
that  15.96  per  cent  were  illiterates,  and  47.59  per  cent  were  able  to  read 
and  write  with  difficulty ;  32.39  per  cent  had  an  ordinary'  common  school 
education ;  4.06  per  cent  came  out  of  high  schools  or  colleges. 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   GANG 


245 


labor."  If  "  the  street "  had  been  written  across  it 
in  capital  letters,  it  could  not  have  been  made 
plainer.  Less  than  15  per  cent  of  the  prisoners 
came  from  good  homes,  and  one  in  sixty-six  (1.5 1) 
had  kept  good  company;  evidently  he  was  not  of 
the  mentally  capable.  They  will  tell  you  at  the 
prison  that,  under  its  discipline,  eighty  odd  per  cent 
are  set  upon  their  feet  and  make  a  fresh  start.  With 
due  allowance  for  a  friendly  critic,  there  is  still  room 
for  the  three-fourths  la- 
belled normal,  of  "natu- 
ral mental  capacity." 
They  came  to  their  own 
with  half  a  chance,  even 
the  chance  of  a  prison. 
The  Children's  Aid  So- 
ciety will  give  you  still 
better  news  of  the  boys 
rescued  from  the  slum 
before  it  had  branded 
them  for  its  own.  Scarce 
five  per  cent  are  lost, 
though  they  leave  such 
a  black  mark  that  they 
make  trouble  for  all  the  good  boys  that  are  sent 
out  from  New  York.  Better  than  these  was  the 
kindergarten  record  in  San  Francisco.  New  York 
has  no  monopoly  of  the  slum.     Of  nine  thousand 


Children's  Playground.  Good  Citi- 
zenship at  the  Bottom  of  this 
Barrel. 


246  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

children  from  the  slummiest  quarters  of  that  city 
who  had  gone  through  the  Golden  Gate  Associa- 
tion's kindergartens,  just  one  was  found  to  have 
got  into  jail.  The  merchants  who  looked  coldly 
on  the  experiment  before,  brought  their  gold  to 
pay  for  keeping  it  up.  They  were  hard-headed 
men  of  business,  and  the  demonstration  that  schools 
were  better  than  jails  any  day  appealed  to  them  as 
eminently  sane  and  practical. 

And  well  it  might.  The  gang  is  a  distemper  of 
the  slum  that  writes  upon  the  generation  it  plagues 
the  receipt  for  its  own  corrective.  It  is  not  the 
night  stick,  though  in  the  acute  stage  that  is  not  to 
be  dispensed  with.  Neither  is  it  the  jail.  To  put 
the  gang  behind  iron  bars  affords  passing  relief,  but 
it  is  like  treating  a  symptom  without  getting  at  the 
root  of  the  disease.  Prophylactic  treatment  is 
clearly  indicated.  The  boy  who  flings  mud  and 
stones  is  entering  his  protest  in  his  own  way  against 
the  purblind  policy  that  gave  him  jails  for  schools 
and  the  gutter  for  a  playground;  that  gave  him 
dummies  for  laws  and  the  tenement  for  a  home. 
He  is  demanding  his  rights,  of  which  he  has  been 
cheated,  —  the  right  to  his  childhood,  the  right  to 
know  the  true  dignity  of  labor  that  makes  a  self-re- 
specting manhood.  The  gang,  rightly  understood, 
is  our  ally,  not  our  enemy.  Like  any  ailment  of  the 
body,  it  is  a  friend  come  to  tell  us  of  something  that 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE   GANG  247 

has  gone  amiss.  The  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  find 
out  what  it  is,  and  set  it  right. 

That  is  the  story  of  the  gang.  That  we  have 
read  and  grasped  its  lesson  at  last,  many  things  bear 
witness.  Here  is  the  League  for  Political  Educa- 
tion providing  a  playground  for  the  children  up  on 
the  West  Side,  near  the  model  tenements  which  I 
described.  Just  so !  With  a  decent  home  and  a 
chance  for  the  boy  to  grow  into  a  healthy  man,  hi? 
political  education  can  proceed  without  much  fur- 
ther hindrance.  Now  let  the  League  for  Political 
Education  trade  off  the  policeman's  club  for  a  boys' 
club,  and  it  may  consider  its  course  fairly  organized. 

I  spoke  of  the  instinct  for  the  crowd  in  the  man 
as  evidence  that  the  slum  had  got  its  grip  on  him. 
And  it  is  true  of  the  boy.  The  experience  that  the 
helpless  poor  will  not  leave  their  slum  when  a  chance 
of  better  things  is  offered  is  wearily  familiar  to  most 
of  us.  One  has  to  have  resources  to  face  the  lone- 
linessj  of  the  woods  and  the  fields.  We  have  seen 
what  resources  the  slum  has  at  its  command.  In 
the  boy  it  laid  hold  of  the  instinct  for  organization, 
the  desire  to  fall  in  and  march  in  line  that  belongs 
to  all  boys,  and  is  not  here,  as  abroad,  cloyed  with 
military  service  in  the  young  years,  —  and  anyhow 
is  stronger  in  the  American  boy  than  in  his  Euro- 
pean brother,  —  and  perverted  it  to  its  own  use. 
That  is  the  simple  secret  of  the  success  of  the  club, 


248  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

the  brigade,  in  winning  back  the  boy.  It  is  fighting 
the  street  with  its  own  weapon.  The  gang  is  the 
club  run  wild. 

How  readily  it  owns  the  kinship  was  never  better 
shown  than  by  the  experience  of  the  college  settle- 
ment girls,  when  they  first  went  to  make  friends  in 
the  East  Side  tenements.  I  have  told  it  before,  but 
it  will  bear  telling  again,  for  it  holds  the  key  to  the 
whole  business.  They  gathered  in  the  drift,  all  the 
little  embryo  gangs  that  were  tuning  up  in  the  dis- 
trict, and  made  them  into  clubs,  —  Young  Heroes, 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  and  such  like;  all 
except  one,  the  oldest,  that  had  begun  to  make  a 
name  for  itself  with  the  police.  That  one  held 
aloof,  observing  coldly  what  went  on,  to  make  sure  it 
was  "straight."  They  let  it  be,  keeping  the  while 
an  anxious  eye  upon  it ;  until  one  day  there  came  a 
delegation  with  this  olive  branch :  "  If  you  will  let 
us  in,  we  will  change  and  have  your  kind  of  a  gang." 
Needless  to  say  it  was  let  in.  And  within  a  year, 
when,  through  a  false  rumor  that  the  concern  was 
moving  away,  there  was  a  run  on  the  settlement's 
penny  provident  bank,  the  converted  gang  proved 
itself  its  stanchest  friend  by  doing  actually  what 
John  Halifax  did  in  Miss  Mulock's  story:  it 
brought  all  the  pennies  it  could  raise  in  the  neigh- 
borhood by  hook  or  by  crook  and  deposited  them  as 
fast  as  the  regular  patrons  —  the  gang  had  not  yet 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG  249 

risen  to  the  dignity  of  a  bank  account  —  drew  them 
out,  until  the  run  ceased.  This  same  gang  which, 
the  year  before,  was  training  for  trouble  with  the 
police ! 

The  cry,  "  Get  the  boys  off  the  street,"  that  has 
been  raised  in  our  cities,  as  the  real  gravity  of  the 
situation  has  been  made  clear,  has  led  to  the  adop- 
tion of  curfew  ordinances  in  many  places.  Any 
attempt  to  fit  such  a  scheme  to  metropolitan  life 
would  result  only  in  adding  one  more  dead-letter 
law,  more  dangerous  than  all  the  rest,  to  those  we 
have.  New  York  is  New  York,  and  one  look  at 
the  crowds  in  the  streets  and  the  tenements  will 
convince  anybody.  Besides,  the  curfew  rings  at  nine 
o'clock.  The  dangerous  hours,  when  the  gang  is 
made,  are  from  seven  to  nine,  between  supper  and 
bedtime.  This  is  the  gap  the  club  fills  out.  The 
boys  take  to  the  street  because  the  home  has  noth- 
ing to  keep  them  there.  To  lock  them  up  in  the 
house  would  only  make  them  hate  it  more.  The 
club  follows  the  line  of  least  resistance.  It  has  only 
to  keep  also  on  the  line  of  common  sense.  It  must 
be  a  real  club,  not  a  reformatory.  Its  proper  func- 
tion is  to  head  off  the  jail.  The  gang  must  not  run 
it.  But  rather  that  than  have  it  help  train  up  a 
band  of  wretched  young  cads.  The  signs  are  not 
hard  to  make  out.  When  a  boy  has  had  his  head 
swelled  by  his  importance  as  a  member  of  the  Junior 


250  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

Street-cleaning  Band  to  the  point  of  reproving  his 
mother  for  throwing  a  banana  peel  in  the  street,  the 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  take  him  out  and  spank  him, 
if  it  is  reverting  to  "  the  savagery "  of  the  street. 
Better  a  savage  than  a  cad.  The  boys  have  the 
making  of  both  in  them.  Their  vanity  furnishes 
abundant  material  for  the  cad,  but  only  when  unduly 
pampered.  Left  to  itself,  the  gang  can  be  trusted 
not  to  develop  that  kink. 

It  comes  down  in  the  end  to  the  personal  influ- 
ence that  is  always  most  potent  in  dealing  with 
these  problems.  We  had  a  gang  start  up  once 
when  my  boys  were  of  that  age,  out  in  the  village 
on  Long  Island  where  we  lived.  It  had  its  head- 
quarters in  our  barn,  where  it  planned  divers  raids 
that  aimed  at  killing  the  cat  and  other  like  out- 
rages ;  the  central  fact  being  that  the  boys  had  an 
air  rifle,  with  which  it  was  necessary  to  murder 
something.  My  wife  discovered  the  conspiracy, 
and,  with  woman's  wit,  defeated  it  by  joining  the 
gang.  She  "  gave  in  wood  "  to  the  election  bon- 
fires, and  pulled  the  safety  valve  upon  all  the  other 
plots  by  entering  into  the  true  spirit  of  them, — 
which  was  adventure  rather  than  mischief,  —  and  so 
keeping  them  within  safe  lines.  She  was  elected 
an  honorary  member,  and  became  the  counsellor  of 
the  gang  in  all  its  little  scrapes.  I  can  yet  see  her 
dear  brow  wrinkled  in  the  study  of   some   knotty 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   GANG  25 1 

gang  problem,  which  we  discussed  when  the  boys 
had  been  long  asleep.  They  did  not  dream  of  it, 
and  the  village  never  knew  what  small  tragedies  it 
escaped,  nor  who  it  was  that  so  skilfully  averted 
them. 

It  is  always  the  women  who  do  those  things. 
They  are  the  law  and  the  gospel  to  the  boy,  both  in 
one.  It  is  the  mother  heart,  I  suppose,  and  there  is 
nothing  better  in  all  the  world.  I  am  reminded  of 
the  conversion  of  "  the  Kid  "  by  one  who  was  in  a 
very  real  sense  the  mother  of  a  social  settlement 
up-town,  in  the  latitude  of  Battle  Row.  The  Kid 
was  driftwood.  He  had  been  cast  off  by  a  drunken 
father  and  mother,  and  was  living  on  what  he  could 
scrape  out  of  ash  barrels,  and  an  occasional  dime 
for  kindling-wood  which  he  sold  from  a  wheel- 
barrow, when  the  gang  found  and  adopted  him. 
My  friend  adopted  the  gang  in  her  turn,  and  civil- 
ized it  by  slow  stages.  Easter  Sunday  came,  when 
she  was  to  redeem  her  promise  to  take  the  boys  to 
witness  the  services  in  a  neighboring  church,  where 
the  liturgy  was  especially  impressive.  It  found  the 
larger  part  of  the  gang  at  her  door,  —  a  minority, 
it  was  announced,  were  out  stealing  potatoes,  hence 
were  excusable,  —  in  a  state  of  high  indignation. 

"  The  Kid's  been  cussin'  awful,"  explained  the 
leader.  The  Kid  showed  in  the  turbulent  distance, 
red-eyed  and  raging. 


252  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

"  But  why  ?  "  asked  my  friend,  in  amazement. 

"  'Cause  he  can't  go  to  church !  " 

It  appeared  that  the  gang  had  shut  him  out,  with 
a  sense  of  what  was  due  to  the  occasion,  because  of 
his  rags.  Restored  to  grace,  and  choking  down 
reminiscent  sobs,  the  Kid  sat  through  the  Easter 
service,  surrounded  by  the  twenty-seven  "  proper " 
members  of  the  gang.  CiviHzation  had  achieved 
a  victory,  and  no  doubt  my  friend  remembered  it  in 
her  prayers  with  thanksgiving.  The  manner  was 
of  less  account.  Battle  Row  has  its  own  ways, 
even  in  its  acceptance  of  means  of  grace. 

I  walked  home  from  the  office  in  the  early  gloam- 
ing. The  street  wore  its  normal  aspect  of  mingled 
dulness  and  the  kind  of  expectancy  that  is  always 
waiting  to  turn  any  excitement,  from  a  fallen  horse 
to  a  fire,  to  instant  account.  The  early  June  heat 
had  driven  the  multitudes  from  the  tenements  into 
the  street  for  a  breath  of  air.  The  boys  of  the 
block  were  holding  a  meeting  at  the  hydrant.  In 
some  way  they  had  turned  the  water  on,  and  were 
splashing  in  it  with  bare  feet,  revelling  in  the  sense 
that  they  were  doing  something  that  "  went  against " 
their  enemy,  the  policeman.  Upon  the  quiet  of  the 
evening  broke  a  bugle  note  and  the  tramp  of  many 
feet  keeping  time.  A  military  band  came  around 
the  corner,  stepping  briskly  to  the  tune  of  "  The 
Stars    and    Stripes    Forever."     Their   white   duck 


THE  GENESIS   OF   THE   GANG  255 

trousers  glimmered  in  the  twilight,  as  the  hundred 
legs  moved  as  one.  Stoops  and  hydrant  were  de- 
serted with  a  rush.  The  gang  fell  in  with  joyous 
shouts.  The  young  fellow  linked  arms  with  his 
sweetheart  and  fell  in  too.  The  tired  mother  hur- 
ried with  the  baby  carriage  to  catch  up.  The 
butcher  came,  hot  and  wiping  his  hands  on  his 
apron,  to  the  door  to  see  them  pass. 

"  Yes,"  said  my  companion,  guessing  my  thoughts, 
—  we  had  been  speaking  of  the  boys,  —  "  but  look 
at  the  other  side.  There  is  the  military  spirit.  Do 
you  not  fear  danger  from  it  in  this  country  ?  " 

No,  my  anxioua friend,  I  do  not.  Let  them  march; 
and  if  with  a  gun,  better  still.  Often  enough  it  is 
the  choice  of  the  gun  on  the  shoulder,  or,  by  and  by, 
the  stripes  on  the  back  in  the  lockstep  gang. 


CHAPTER  X 

JIM 

I  USED  to  think  that  it  would  have  been  better 
for  Jim  if  he  had  never  been  born.  What  the  good 
bishop  said  of  some  children  —  that  they  were  not 
so  much  born  into  the  world  as  they  were  damned 
into  it  —  seemed  true  of  Jim,  if  ever  it  was  true  of 
any  one.  He  had  had  a  father,  once,  who  was  kind 
to  him,  but  it  was  long  since.  The  one  he  called 
by  that  name  last  had  been  sent  to  Sing  Sing,  to 
the  lad's  great  relief,  for  a  midnight  burglary,  shortly 
after  he  married  Jim's  mother.  His  back  hurt  yet 
when  he  thought  of  the  evil  days  when  he  was  around. 
If  anyone  had  thought  it  worth  while  to  teach  Jim  to 
pray,  he  would  have  prayed  with  all  his  might  that 
his  father  might  never  come  out.  But  no  one  did, 
so  that  he  was  spared  that  sin.  I  suppose  that  was 
what  it  would  have  been  called.  I  am  free  to  con- 
fess that  I  would  have  joined  Jim  in  sinning  with 
a  right  good  will,  even  to  the  extent  of  speeding 
the  benevolent  intentions  of  Providence  in  that 
direction  —  anyhow,  until  Jim  should  be  able  to 
take  care  of  himself.     I  mean  with  his  fists.     He 

256 


JIM  257 

was  in  a  way  of  learning  that  without  long  delay, 
for  ever  since  he  was  a  little  shaver  he  had  had  to 
fight  his  own  way,  and  sometimes  his  mother's. 
He  was  thirteen  when  I  met  him,  and  most  of  his 
time  had  been  put  in  around  the  Rag  Gang's  quar- 
ters, along  First  Avenue  and  the  river  front,  where 
that  kind  of  learning  was  abundant  and  came 
cheap. 

His  mother  drank.  I  do  not  know  what  made 
her  do  it  —  whether  it  was  the  loss  of  the  first 
husband,  or  getting  the  second,  or  both.  It  did  not 
seem  important  when  she  stood  there,  weak  and 
wretched  and  humble,  with  Jim.  And  as  for  my 
preaching  to  her,  sitting  in  my  easy-chair,  well  fed 
and  respectable,  that  would  come  near  to  being 
impertinence.  So  it  always  struck  me.  Perhaps 
I  was  wrong.  Anyway,  it  would  have  done  her  no 
good.  Too  much  harm  had  been  done  her  already. 
She  would  disappear  for  days,  sometimes  for  weeks 
at  a  time,  on  her  frequent  sprees.  Jim  never  made 
any  inquiries.  On  those  occasions  he  kept  aloof 
from  us,  and  paddled  his  own  canoe,  lest  we  should 
ask  questions.  It  was  when  she  had  come  home 
sobered  that  we  saw  them  always  together.  Now 
it  was  the  rent,  and  then  again  a  few  groceries. 
With  such  lifts  as  she  got,  sandwiched  in  with 
much  good  advice,  and  by  the  aid  of  an  odd  job 
now  and  then,  Mrs.  Kelly  managed  to  keep  a  bit 


258  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

of  a  roof  over  her  boy  and  herself,  down  in  the 
"  village "  on  the  river  front.  At  least,  Jim  had  a 
place  to  sleep.  Until,  one  day,  our  visitor  reported 
that  she  was  gone  for  good —  she  and  the  boy. 
They  were  both  gone, —  nobody  in  the  neighbor- 
hood knew  or  cared  where,  —  and  the  room  was 
vacant.  Except  that  they  had  not  been  dispos- 
sessed, we  could  learn  nothing.  Jim  was  not  found, 
and  in  the  press  of  many  things  the  Kellys  were 
forgotten.  Once  or  twice  his  patient,  watchful 
eyes,  that  seemed  to  be  always  trying  to  understand 
something  to  which  he  had  not  found  the  key, 
haunted  me  at  my  office  ;  but  at  last  I  forgot  about 
them  too. 

Some  months  passed.  It  was  winter.  A  girl, 
who  had  been  one  of  our  cares,  had  been  taken  to 
the  city  hospital  to  die,  and  our  visitor  went  there 
to  see  and  comfort  her.  She  was  hastening  down 
the  long  aisle  between  the  two  rows  of  beds,  when 
she  felt  something  tugging  feebly  at  the  sleeve  of 
her  coat.  Looking  round,  she  saw  on  the  pillow 
of  the  bed  she  had  just  passed  the  face  of  Jim's 
mother. 

"  Why,  Mrs.  Kelly ! "  she  exclaimed,  and  went 
to  her.  "  Where  —  ?  "  But  the  question  that  rose 
to  her  lips  was  never  spoken.  One  glance  was 
enough  to  show  that  her  time  was  very  short,  and 
she  was   not   deceived.      The   nurse  supplied   the 


JIM  259 

facts  briefly  in  a  whisper.  She  had  been  picked  up 
in  the  street,  drunk  or  sick — the  diagnosis  was 
not  clearly  made  out  at  the  time,  but  her  record 
was  against  her.  She  lay  a  day  or  two  in  a  police 
cell,  and  by  the  time  it  was  clear  that  it  was  not 
rum  this  time,  the  mischief  was  done.  Probably 
it  would  have  been  done  anyhow.  The  woman 
was  worn  out.  What  now  lay  on  the  hospital  cot 
was  a  mere  wreck  of  her,  powerless  to  move  or 
speak.  She  could  only  plead  with  her  large,  sad 
eyes.  As  she  tried  to  make  them  say  that  which 
was  in  her  soul,  two  big  tears  rolled  slowly  down 
the  wan  cheeks  and  fell  on  the  coarse  sheet.  The 
visitor  understood.     What  woman  would  not  ? 

"  Jim }  "  she  said,  and  the  light  of  joy  and  under- 
standing came  into  the  yearning  eyes.  She  nodded 
ever  so  feebly,  and  the  hand  that  rested  in  her 
friend's  twitched  and  trembled  in  the  effort  to  grasp 
hers. 

"  I  will  find  him.  It  is  all  right.  Now,  you  be 
quite  happy.     I  will  bring  him  here." 

The  white  face  settled  back  on  the  pillow,  and 
the  weary  eyes  closed  with  a  little  sigh  of  content- 
ment very  strange  in  that  place.  When  the  visitor 
passed  her  cot  ten  minutes  later,  she  was  asleep, 
with  a  smile  on  her  lips. 

It  proved  not  so  easy  a  matter  to  find  Jim. 
We  came  upon  his  track  in  his  old  haunts  after  a 


26o  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

while,  only  to  lose  it  again  and  again.  It  was  clear 
that  he  was  around,  but  it  seemed  almost  as  if  he 
were  purposely  dodging  us ;  and  in  fact  that  proved 
to  have  been  the  case  when  at  last,  after  a  hunt  of 
weary  days  and  nights  through  the  neighborhood, 
he  was  brought  in.  Ragged,  pale,  and  pinched 
by  hunger,  we  saw  him  with  a  shock  of  remorse 
for  having  let  him  drift  so  long.  His  story  was 
simple  enough.  When  his  mother  failed  to  come 
back,  and,  the  rent  coming  due,  the  door  of  what 
had  been  home  to  him,  even  such  as  it  was,  was 
closed  upon  him,  he  took  to  the  street.  He  slept 
in  hallways  and  with  the  gang  among  the  docks, 
never  going  far  from  the  "  village  "  lest  he  should 
miss  news  of  his  mother  coming  back.  The  cold 
nights  came,  and  he  shivered  often  in  his  burrows ; 
but  he  never  relaxed  his  watch.  All  the  time  his 
mother  lay  dying  less  than  half  a  dozen  blocks 
away,  but  there  was  no  one  to  tell  him.  Had  any 
one  done  so,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  guard  would 
have  let  him  through  the  gate,  as  he  looked.  Seven 
weeks  he  had  spent  in  the  streets  when  he  heard 
that  he  was  wanted.  The  other  boys  told  him  that 
it  was  the  "  cruelty "  man  sure ;  and  then  began 
the  game  of  hide-and-seek  that  tried  our  patience 
and  wore  on  his  mother,  sinking  rapidly  now,  but 
that  eventually  turned  up  Jim. 

We  took  him  up  to  the  hospital,  and  into  the 


JIM  263 

ward  where  his  mother  lay.  Away  off  at  the 
farther  end  of  the  room,  he  knew  her,  the  last  in 
the  row,  and  ran  straight  to  her  before  we  could 
stop  him,  and  fell  on  her  neck. 

"  Mother ! "  we  heard  him  say,  while  he  hugged 
her,  with  his  head  on  her  pillow.  "Mother,  why 
don't  you  speak  to  me  ?     I  am  all  right  —  I  am." 

He  raised  his  head  and  looked  at  her.  Happy 
tears  ran  down  the  thin  face  turned  to  his.  He 
took  her  in  his  arms  again. 

"  I  am  all  right,  mother ;  honest,  I  am.  Don't 
you  cry.  I  couldn't  keep  the  rooms,  mother! 
They  took  everything,  only  the  deed  to  father's 
grave.     I  kept  that." 

He  dug  in  the  pocket  of  his  old  jacket,  and 
brought  out  a  piece  of  paper,  carefully  wrapped 
in  many  layers  of  rags  and  newspaper  that  hung 
in  dirty  tatters. 

"  Here  it  is.  Everything  else  is  gone.  But  it 
is  all  right.  I've  got  you,  and  I  am  here.  Oh, 
mother !     You  were  gone  so  long !  " 

Longer  —  poor  Jim  —  the  parting  that  was  even 
then  adding  another  to  the  mysteries  that  had 
vexed  my  soul  concerning  you.  Happiness  at 
last  had  broken  the  weary  heart.  But  if  it  added 
one,  it  dispelled  another :  I  knew  then  that  I  erred, 
Jim,  when  I  thought  it  were  better  if  you  had  never 
been  born! 


CHAPTER   XI 

LETTING    IN   THE    LIGHT 

I  HAD  been  out  of  town  and  my  way  had  not 
fallen  through  the  Mulberry  Bend  in  weeks  until 
that  morning  when  I  came  suddenly  upon  the  park 
that  had  been  made  there  in  my  absence.  Sod 
had  been  laid,  and  men  were  going  over  the  lawn 
cutting  the  grass  after  the  rain.  The  sun  shone 
upon  flowers  and  the  tender  leaves  of  young  shrubs, 
and  the  smell  of  new-mown  hay  was  in  the  air. 
Crowds  of  little  Italian  children  shouted  with  de- 
light over  the  "garden,"  while  their  elders  sat 
around  upon  the  benches  with  a  look  of  content- 
ment such  as  I  had  not  seen  before  in  that  place. 
I  stood  and  looked  at  it  all,  and  a  lump  came  in 
my  throat  as  I  thought  of  what  it  had  been,  and 
of  all  the  weary  years  of  battling  for  this.  It  had 
been  such  a  hard  fight,  and  now  at  last  it  was  won. 
To  me  the  whole  battle  with  the  slum  had  summed 
itself  up  in  the  struggle  with  this  dark  spot.  The 
whir  of  the  lawn-mower  was  as  sweet  a  song  in 
my  ear  as  that  which  the  skylark  sang  when  I  was 
a  boy,  in  Danish  fields,  and  which  gray  hairs  do 
not  make  the  man  forget. 

264 


Keep  off  the  grass.'  " 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  267 

In  my  delight  I  walked  upon  the  grass.  It 
seemed  as  if  I  should  never  be  satisfied  till  I  had 
felt  the  sod  under  my  feet,  —  sod  in  the  Mulberry 
Bend!  I  did  not  see  the  gray -coated  policeman 
hastening  my  way,  nor  the  wide-eyed  youngsters 
awaiting  with  shuddering  delight  the  catastrophe 
that  was  coming,  until  I  felt  his  cane  laid  smartly 
across  my  back  and  heard  his  angry  command: 

"  Hey !  Come  off  the  grass !  D'ye  think  it  is 
made  to  walk  on  ? " 

So  that  was  what  I  got  for  it.  It  is  the  way  of 
the  w^orld.  But  it  was  all  right.  The  park  was 
there,  that  was  the  thing.  And  I  had  my  revenge. 
I  had  just  had  a  hand  in  marking  five  blocks  of 
tenements  for  destruction  to  let  in  more  light,  and 
in  driving  the  slum  from  two  other  strongholds. 
Where  they  were,  parks  are  being  made  to-day  in 
which  the  sign  "  Keep  off  the  grass  !  "  will  never  be 
seen.  The  children  may  walk  in  them  from  morn- 
ing till  night,  and  I  too,  if  I  want  to,  with  no  police- 
man to  drive  us  off.  I  tried  to  tell  the  policeman 
something  about  it.  But  he  was  of  the  old  dispen- 
sation.    All  the  answer  I  got  was  a  gruff: 

"  G'wan  now !     I  don't  want  none  o'  yer  guff !  " 

It  was  all  "guff"  to  the  politicians,  I  suppose, 
from  the  day  the  trouble  began  about  the  Mulberry 
Bend,  but  toward  the  end  they  woke  up  nobly. 
When  the  park  was  finally  dedicated  to  the  people's 


268  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

use,  they  took  charge  of  the  celebration  with  im- 
mense unction,  and  invited  themselves  to  sit  in  the 
high  seats  and  glory  in  the  achievement  which  they 
had  done  little  but  hamper  and  delay  from  the  first. 
They  had  not  reckoned  with  Colonel  Waring,  how- 
ever. When  they  had  had  their  say,  the  colonel 
arose,  and,  curtly  reminding  them  that  they  had 
really  had  no  hand  in  the  business,  proposed  three 
cheers  for  the  citizen  effort  that  had  struck  the 
slum  this  staggering  blow.  There  was  rather  a 
feeble  response  on  the  platform,  but  rousing  cheers 
from  the  crowd,  with  whom  the  colonel  was  a 
prime  favorite,  and  no  wonder.  Two  years  later  he 
laid  down  his  life  in  the  fight  which  he  so  valiantly 
and  successfully  waged.  It  is  the  simple  truth  that 
he  was  killed  by  politics.  The  services  which  he 
had  rendered  the  city  would  have  entitled  him  in 
any  reputable  business  to  be  retained  in  the  employ- 
ment that  was  his  life  and  his  pride.  Had  he  been 
so  retained,  he  would  not  have  gone  to  Cuba,  and 
would  in  all  human  probability  be  now  alive.  But 
Tammany  is  not  "  in  politics  for  its  health "  and 
had  no  use  for  him,  though  no  more  grievous  charge 
could  be  laid  at  his  door,  even  in  the  heat  of  the 
campaign,  than  that  he  was  a  "foreigner,"  being 
from  Rhode  Island.  Spoils  politics  never  craved  a 
heavier  sacrifice  of  any  community. 

It  was  Colonel  Waring's  broom  that  first  let  light 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT 


269 


into  the  slum.  That  which  had  come  to  be  con- 
sidered an  impossible  task  he  did  by  the  simple 
formula  of  "  putting  a  man  instead  of  a  voter  behind 
every  broom."  The  words  are  his  own.  The  man, 
from  a  political  dummy  who  loathed  his  job  and 
himself  in  it  with 
cause,  became  a  self- 
respecting  citizen, 
and  the  streets  that 
had  deen  dirty  were 
swept.  The  ash  bar- 
rels which  had  be- 
fouled the  sidewalks 
disappeared,  almost 
without  any  one  know- 
ing it  till  they  were 
gone.  The  trucks  that 
obstructed  the  chil- 
dren's only  play- 
ground,    the     street, 

went     with     the     dirt,  Colonel  George  E.  Waring,  Jr. 

despite  the  opposition  of  the  truckman  who  had 
traded  off  his  vote  to  Tammany  in  the  past  for  stall 
room  at  the  curbstone.  They  did  not  go  without  a 
struggle.  When  appeal  to  the  alderman  proved 
useless,  the  truckman  resorted  to  strategy.  He 
took  a  wheel  off,  or  kept  a  perishing  nag,  that  could 
not  walk,  hitched  to  the  truck  over  night  to  make 


2/0  THE   BATTLE  WITH  THE   SLUM 

it  appear  that  it  was  there  for  business.  But  sub- 
terfuge availed  as  little  as  resistance.  In  the  Mul- 
.  berry  Bend  he  made  his  last  stand.  The  old  houses 
had  been  torn  down,  leaving  a  three-acre  lot  full 
of  dirt  mounds  and  cellar  holes.  Into  this  the 
truckmen  of  the  Sixth  Ward  hauled  their  carts, 
and  defied  the  street  cleaners.  They  were  no 
longer  in  their  way,  and  they  were  on  the  Park  De- 
partment's domain,  where  no  Colonel  Waring  was 
in  control.  But  while  their  owners  were  triumph- 
ing, the  children  playing  among  the  trucks  set  one 
of  them  rolling  down  into  a  cellar,  and  three  or  four 
of  the  little  ones  were  crushed.  That  was  the  end. 
The  trucks  disappeared.  Even  Tammany  has  not 
ventured  to  put  them  back,  so  great  was  the  relief 
of  their  going.  They  were  not  only  a  hindrance  to 
the  sweeper  and  the  skulking-places  of  all  manner 
of  mischief  at  night,  but  I  have  repeatedly  seen  the 
firemen  baffled  in  their  efforts  to  reach  a  burning 
house,  where  they  stood  four  and  six  deep  in  the 
wide  "  slips  "  at  the  river. 

Colonel  Waring  did  more  for  the  cause  of  labor 
than  all  the  walking  delegates  of  the  town  together, 
by  investing  a  despised  but  highly  important  task 
with  a  dignity  which  won  the  hearty  plaudits  of  a 
grateful  city.  When  he  uniformed  his  men  and 
announced  that  he  was  going  to  parade  with  them 
so  that  we  might  all  see  what  they  were  like,  the 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  2/1 

town  laughed  and  poked  fun  at  the  "  white  wings  " ; 
but  no  one  went  to  see  them  who  did  not  come 
away  converted  to  an  enthusiastic  belief  in  the  man 
and  his  work.  Public  sentiment,  that  had  been  half 
reluctantly  suspending  judgment,  expecting  every 
day  to  see  the  colonel  "  knuckle  down  to  politics  " 
like  his  predecessors,  turned  in  an  hour,  and  after 
that  there  was  little  trouble.  The  tenement  house 
children  organized  street  cleaning  bands  to  help 
along  the  work,  and  Colonel  Waring  enlisted  them 
as  regular  auxiliaries  and  made  them  useful. 

They  had  no  better  friend.  When  the  unhappy 
plight  of  the  persecuted  push-cart  men  —  all  immi- 
grant Jews,  who  were  blackmailed,  robbed,  and  driven 
from  pillar  to  post  as  a  nuisance  after  they  had  bought 
a  license  to  trade  in  the  street  —  appealed  vainly 
for  a  remedy,  Colonel  Waring  found  a  way  out  in 
a  great  morning  market  in  Hester  Street  that 
should  be  turned  over  to  the  children  for  a  play- 
ground in  the  afternoon.  But  though  he  proved 
that  it  would  pay  interest  on  the  investment  in 
market  fees,  and  many  times  in  the  children's  happi- 
ness, it  was  never  built.  It  would  have  been  a  most 
fitting  monument  to  the  man's  memory.  His  broom 
saved  more  lives  in  the  crowded  tenements  than  a 
squad  of  doctors.  It  did  more:  it  swept  the  cob- 
webs out  of  our  civic  brain  and  conscience,  and  set 
up  a  standard  of  a  citizen's  duty  which,  however  we 


272  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


A  Tammany-swept  East  Side  Street  before  Colonel  Waring's  Day. 

may  for  the  moment  forget,  will  be  ours  until  we 
have  dragged  other  things  than  our  pavements  out 
of  the  mud. 

Even  the  colonel's  broom  would  have  been  power- 
less to  do  that  for  "  the  Bend."  That  was  hopeless 
and  had  to  go.  There  was  no  question  of  children 
or  playground  involved.  The  worst  of  all  the  gangs, 
the  Whyds,  had  its  headquarters  in  the  darkest 
of  its  dark  alleys ;  but  it  was  left  to  the  police. 
We  had  not  begun  to  understand  that  the  gangs 
meant  something  to  us  beyond  murder  and  ven- 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT 


273 


The  Same  Street  when  Colonel  Waring  wielded  the  Broom. 

geance,  in  those  days.  No  one  suspected  that  they 
had  any  such  roots  in  the  soil  that  they  could  be 
killed  by  merely  destroying  the  slum.  The  cholera 
was  rapping  on  our  door,  and,  with  the  Bend  there, 
we  felt  about  it  as  a  man  with  stolen  goods  in  his 
house  must  feel  when  the  policeman  comes  up  the 
street.  Back  in  the  seventies  we  began  discussing 
what  ought  to  be  done.  By  1884  the  first  Tene- 
ment House  Commission  had  summoned  up 
courage  to  propose  that  a  street  be  cut  through 
the  bad  block.      In   the  following  year  a  bill  was 


274  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

brought  in  to  destroy  it  bodily,  and  then  began  the 
long  fight  that  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  slum  a 
dozen  years  later. 

It  was  a  bitter  fight,  in  which  every  position  of 
the  enemy  had  to  be  carried  by  assault.  The  enemy 
was  the  deadly  official  inertia  that  was  the  outcome 
of  political  corruption  born  of  the  slum  plus  the  in- 
difference of  the  mass  of  our  citizens,  who  probably 
had  never  seen  the  Bend.  If  I  made  it  my  own 
concern  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else,  it  was  only  be- 
cause I  knew  it.  I  had  been  part  of  it.  Homeless 
and  alone,  I  had  sought  its  shelter,  not  for  long, — 
that  was  not  to  be  endured,  —  but  long  enough  to 
taste  of  its  poison,  and  I  hated  it.  I  knew  that  the 
blow  must  be  struck  there,  to  kill.  Looking  back 
now  over  those  years,  I  can  see  that  it  was  all  as  it 
should  be.  We  were  learning  the  alphabet  of  our 
lesson  then.  We  could  have  learned  it  in  no  other 
way  so  thoroughly.  Before  we  had  been  at  it  more 
than  two  or  three  years,  it  was  no  longer  a  question 
of  the  Bend  merely.  The  Small  Parks  law,  that 
gave  us  a  million  dollars  a  year  to  force  light  and 
air  into  the  slum,  to  its  destruction,  grew  out  of  it. 
The  whole  sentiment  which  in  its  day,  groping 
blindly  and  angrily,  had  wiped  out  the  disgrace  of 
the  Five  Points,  just  around  the  corner,  crystallized 
and  took  shape  in  its  fight.  It  waited  merely  for 
the  issue  of   that,  to   attack  the  slum  in  its  other 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  275 

strongholds ;  and  no  sooner  was  the  Bend  gone 
than  the  rest  surrendered.     Time  was  up. 

But  it  was  not  so  easy  campaigning  at  the  start. 
In  1888  plans  were  filed  for  the  demolition  of  the 
block.  It  took  four  years  to  get  a  report  of  what  it 
would  cost  to  tear  it  down.  About  once  in  two 
months  during  all  that  time  the  authorities  had  to 
be  prodded  into  a  spasm  of  activity,  or  we  would 
probably  have  been  yet  where  we  were  then.  Once, 
when  I  appealed  to  the  corporation  counsel  to  give 
a  good  reason  for  the  delay,  I  got  the  truth  out  of 
him  without  evasion. 

"  Well,  I  tell  you,"  he  said  blandly,  "  no  one  here 
is  taking  any  interest  in  that  business.  That  is 
good  enough  reason  for  you,  isn't  it  ?  " 

It  was.  That  Tammany  reason  became  the  slo- 
gan of  an  assault  upon  official  incompetence  and 
treachery  that  hurried  things  up  considerably.  The 
property  was  condemned  at  a  total  cost  to  the  city 
of  a  million  and  a  half,  in  round  numbers,  including 
the  assessment  of  half  a  million  for  park  benefit 
which  the  property  owners  were  quick  enough,  with 
the  aid  of  the  politicians,  to  get  saddled  on  the  city 
at  large.  In  1894  the  city  took  possession  and  be- 
came the  landlord  of  the  old  barracks.  For  a  whole 
year  it  complacently  collected  the  rents  and  did 
nothing.  When  it  was  shamed  out  of  that  rut,  too, 
and  the   tenements  were   at   last   torn   down,   the 


276  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

square  lay  as  the  wreckers  had  left  it  for  another 
year,  until  it  became  such  a  plague  spot  that,  as  a 
last  resort,  with  a  citizen's  privilege,  I  arraigned  the 
municipality  before  the  Board  of  Health  for  main- 
taining a  nuisance  upon  its  premises.  I  can  see  the 
shocked  look  of  the  official  now,  as  he  studied  the 
complaint. 

"  But,  my  dear  sir,"  he  coughed  diplomatically, 
"  isn't  it  rather  unusual }  I  never  heard  of  such  a 
thing." 

"  Neither  did  I,"  I  replied,  "  but  then  there  never 
was  such  a  thing  before." 

That  night,  while  they  were  debating  the  "  un- 
usual thing,"  happened  the  accident  to  the  children 
of  which  I  spoke,  emphasizing  the  charge  that  the 
nuisance  was  "  dangerous  to  life,"  and  there  was  an 
end.  In  the  morning  the  Bend  was  taken  in  hand, 
and  the  following  spring  the  Mulberry  Bend  Park 
was  opened. 

I  told  the  story  of  that  in  "  The  Making  of  an 
American,"  and  how  the  red  tape  of  the  comp- 
troller's office  pointed  the  way  out,  after  all,  with  its 
check  for  three  cents  that  had  gone  astray  in  the 
purchase  of  a  school  site.  Of  that  sort  of  thing  we 
had  enough.  But  the  Gilder  Tenement  House 
Commission  had  been  sitting,  the  Committee  of 
Seventy  had  been  at  work,  and  a  law  was  on  the 
statute  books  authorizing  the  expenditure  of  three 


The  Mulberry  Bend. 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  279 

million  dollars  for  two  open  spaces  in  the  parkless 
district  on  the  East  Side,  where  Jacob  Beresheim 
was  born.  It  had  been  shown  that  while  the  propor- 
tion of  park  area  inside  the  limits  of  the  old  city- 
was  equal  to  one-thirteenth  of  all,  below  Fourteenth 
Street,  where  one-third  of  the  people  lived,  it  was 
barely  one-fortieth.  It  took  a  citizen's  committee 
appointed  by  the  mayor  just  three  weeks  to  seize  the 
two  park  sites  for  the  children's  use,  and  it  took  the 
Good  Government  Clubs  with  their  allies  at  Albany 
less  than  two  months  to  get  warrant  of  law  for  the 
tearing  down  of  the  houses  ahead  of  final  condem- 
nation, lest  any  mischance  befall  through  delay  or 
otherwise, — a  precaution  which  subsequent  events 
proved  to  be  eminently  wise.  I  believe  the  legal 
proceedings  are  going  on  yet. 

The  playground  part  of  it  was  a  provision  of  the 
Gilder  law  that  showed  what  apt  scholars  we  had 
been.  I  was  a  member  of  that  committee,  and  I 
fed  fat  my  grudge  against  the  slum  tenement,  know- 
ing that  I  might  not  again  have  such  a  chance. 
Bone  Alley  went.  I  shall  not  soon  get  the  picture 
of  it,  as  I  saw  it  last,  out  of  my  mind.  I  had  wan- 
dered to  the  top  floor  of  one  of  the  ramshackle  tene- 
ments in  the  heart  of  the  block,  to  a  door  that  stood 
ajar,  and  pushed  it  open.  On  the  floor  lay  three 
women  rag-pickers  with  their  burdens,  asleep,  over- 
come  by  the   heat  and   beer,   the  stale  stench  of 


280 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


which  filled  the  place.  Swarms  of  flies  covered 
them.  The  room  —  no!  let  it  go.  Thank  God,  we 
shall    not   again   hear   of    Bone    Alley.     Where    it 


Bone  Alley. 


cursed  the  earth  with  its  gloom  and  its  poverty, 
the  sun  shines  to-day  on  children  at  play.  If  we 
are  slow  to  understand  the  meaning  of  it  all,  they 
will  not  be.     We  shall  have  light  from  that  quarter 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  28 1 

when  they  grow  up,  on  what  is  truly  "  educational  " 
in  the  bringing  up  of  young  citizens.  The  children 
will  teach  us  something  for  a  change  that  will  do 
us  lasting  good. 

Half  a  dozen  blocks  away,  in  Rivington  Street, 
the  city's  first  public  bath-house  has  at  last  been 
built,  after  many  delays,  and  godliness  will  have  a 
chance  to  move  in  with  cleanliness.  The  two  are 
neighbors  everywhere,  but  in  the  slum  the  last 
must  come  first.  Glasgow  has  half  a  dozen  public 
baths.  Rome,  two  thousand  years  ago,  washed  its 
people  most  sedulously,  and  in  heathen  Japan 
to-day,  I  am  told,  there  are  baths,  as  we  have 
saloons,  on  every  corner.  Christian  New  York 
never  had  an  all-year  bath-house  until  now.  In  a 
tenement  population  of  255,033  the  Gilder  Com- 
mission found  only  306  who  had  access  to  bath- 
rooms in  the  houses  where  they  lived,  and  they 
would  have  found  the  same  thing  wherever  they 
went.  The  Church  Federation  canvass  of  the 
Fifteenth  Assembly  District  over  on  the  West  Side, 
where  they  did  .not  go,  counted  three  bath-tubs  to 
1 32 1  families.  Nor  was  that  because  they  so  elected. 
The  People's  Baths  took  in  121,386  half  dimes 
last  year  (i 901)  for  as  many  baths,  and  more  than 
forty  per  cent  of  their  customers  were  Italians.  In 
the  first  five  months  of  the  present  year  the  Riving- 
ton Street  baths  accommodate  224,876  bathers,  of 


282  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

whom  66,256  were  women  and  girls.  And  this  in 
winter.  The  free  river  baths  have  registered  five 
and  six  millions  of  bathers  in  one  brief  season. 
The  "  great  unwashed  "  were  not  so  from  choice,  it 
would  appear. 

The  river  baths  were  only  for  summer,  and 
their  time  is  past.  As  the  sewers  that  empty 
into  the  river  multiply,  it  is  getting  less  and  less  a 
place  fit  to  bathe  in,  though  the  boys  find  no  fault. 
Sixteen  public  bath-houses  on  shore  are  to  take  the 
place  of  the  swimming  baths.  They  are  all  to  be 
in  the  crowded  tenement  districts.  The  sites  for 
the  first  three  are  being  chosen  now.  And  a  wise 
woman  ^  offers  to  build  and  equip  one  all  complete 
at  her  own  expense,  as  her  gift  to  the  city. 

Pull  up  now  a  minute,  if  you  think,  with  some 
good  folks,  that  the  world  is  not  advancing,  but  just 
marking  time,  and  look  back  half  a  century.  I  said 
that  New  York  never  had  a  public  bath  till  now. 
I  meant  a  free  bath.  As  long  ago  as  1852,  just 
fifty  years  ago,  the  Association  for  improving  the 
Condition  of  the  Poor  built  one  in  Mott  Street  near 
Grand  Street,  and  spent  $42,000  in  doing  it.  It  ran 
eight  years,  and  was  then  closed  for  want  of  patron- 
age. Forty  years  passed,  and  it  was  again  the  Asso- 
ciation for  improving  the  Condition  of  the  Poor 
that  built  the  People's  Baths  in  the  same  neighbor- 

*  Mrs.  A.  A .  Anderson. 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  283 

hood.  That  time  they  succeeded  at  once.  And 
now  here  we  are,  planning  a  great  system  of  munic- 
ipal baths  as  the  people's  right,  not  as  a  favor  to 
any  one,  and  the  old  lie  that  the  poor  prefer  to 
steep  in  their  squalor  is  no  longer  believed  by  any 
person  with  sense.  This  month  contracts  will  be 
given  out  for  the  fitting  of  nine  public  schools  with 
shower-baths  where  we  had  one  before,  and  notice  is 
given  that  that  one  will  be  open  to  the  people  on 
Sunday  mornings.  No,  we  are  not  marking  time ;  we 
are  forging  ahead.  Every  park,  every  playground, 
every  bath-house,  is  a  nail  in  the  coffin  of  the  slum, 
and  every  big,  beautiful  schoolhouse,  built  for  the 
people's  use,  not  merely  to  lock  the  children  up  in 
during  certain  hours  for  which  the  teachers  collect 
pay,  is  a  pole  rammed  right  through  the  heart  of  it 
so  that  even  its  ghost  shall  never  walk  again.  For 
ever  so  much  of  it  we  thank  that  association  of 
men  of  splendid  courage  and  public  spirit.  They 
fight  to  win  because  they  believe  in  the  people. 
They  fight  with  the  people  and  so  they  are  bound 
to  win. 

Every  once  in  a  while  these  days  a  false  note  in  it 
all  jars  upon  me  —  a  note  of  dread  lest  those  we 
are  trying  to  help  get  tired  of  the  word  "  reform  " 
and  balk.  Reform  such  as  we  have  occasionally 
had  is  to  blame  for  some  of  that.  Certainly  you  do 
not  want  to   reform   men  by  main    strength,  drag 


284  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

them  into  righteousness  by  the  hair  of  the  head,  as 
it  were.  And  let  it  be  freely  admitted  that  the  man 
on  Fifth  Avenue  needs  to  be  reformed  quite  as 
much  as  his  neighbor  in  Mulberry  Street  whom  he 
forgot,  —  more,  since  it  is  his  will  to  mend  things 
that  has  to  be  righted,  while  it  is  the  other's  power 
to  do  it  that  is  lacking.  But  right  there  stop.  Let 
us  have  no  pretending  that  there  is  nothing  to  mend. 
There  is  a  good  deal,  and  it  is  not  going  to  be 
mended  by  stuffing  the  one  you  would  help  with 
conceit  and  ingratitude.  Ingratitude  does  not  natu- 
rally inhabit  the  slums,  but  it  is  a  crop  that  is  easily 
grown  there,  and  where  it  does  grow  there  is  an  end 
of  efforts  to  mend  things  in  that  generation.  You 
do  not  want  to  come  down  to  your  work  for  your 
fellows,  when  you  go  from  the  brown-stone  front  to 
the  tenement ;  but  neither  do  you  want  to  make  him 
believe  that  you  feel  you  are  coming  up  to  him,  for 
you  know  you  do  not  feel  that  way.  And  more- 
over, it  is  not  true,  if  you  are  coming  at  all.  You 
want  to  come  right  over,  to  help  him  reform  con- 
ditions of  his  life  with  which  he  cannot  grapple 
alone,  and  it  is  as  good  for  him,  as  it  is  for  you  to 
know  that  you  are  doing  it.  For  that  is  the 
brotherhood.  And  now  you  can  see  how  that  is 
the  only  thing  that  really  helps.  Charity  may 
corrupt,  correction  may  harden  and  estrange,  — 
in  the  family  they  do  neither.     There  you  can  give 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  285 

and  take  without  offence.  Children  of  one  Father! 
Spin  all  the  fine  theories  you  like,  build  up  systems 
of  profound  philosophy,  of  social  ethics,  of  philan- 
thropic endeavor ;  back  to  that  you  get  —  if  you  get 
anywhere  at  all. 

I  did  not  mean  to  preach.  I  was  just  thinking 
that  the  Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of 
the  Poor,  in  its  fifty  years  of  battling  with  all  that 
makes  the  slum,  has  come  nearer  that  ideal  than  any 
and  all  the  rest  of  us.  And  the  president  of  it  these 
ten  years,  the  same  who  with  his  brother  tried  to 
reform  Gotham  Court,  is  the  head,  too,  of  the  citi- 
zens' union  which  is  the  whole  reform  programme 
in  a  nutshell.     All  of  which  is  as  it  ought  to  be. 

To  return  to  the  East  Side  where  the  light  was  let 
in.  Bone  Alley  brought  thirty-seven  dollars  under 
the  auctioneer's  hammer.  Thieves'  Alley,  in  the 
other  park  down  at  Rutgers  Square,  where  the 
police  clubbed  the  Jewish  cloakmakers  a  few  years 
ago  for  the  offence  of  gathering  to  assert  their  right 
to  "  being  men,  live  the  life  of  men,"  as  some  one 
who  knew  summed  up  the  labor  movement,  brought 
only  seven  dollars,  and  the  old  Helvetia  House, 
where  Boss  Tweed  and  his  gang  met  at  night  to 
plan  their  plundering  raids  on  the  city's  treasury, 
was  knocked  down  for  five.  Kerosene  Row,  in  the 
same  block,  did  not  bring  enough  to  have  bought 
kindling  wood  with  which  to  start  one  of  the  nu- 


286  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

merous  fires  that  gave  it  its  bad  name.  It  was  in 
Thieves'  Alley  that  the  owner  in  the  days  long  gone 
by  hung  out  the  sign,  "  No  Jews  need  apply." 
I  stood  and  watched  the  opening  of  the  first  munici- 
pal playground  upon  the  site  of  the  old  alley,  and 
in  the  thousands  that  thronged  street  and  tenements 
from  curb  to  roof  with  thunder  of  applause,  there 
were  not  twoscore  who  could  have  found  lodging 
with  the  old  Jew-baiter.  He  had  to  go  with  his 
alley,  before  the  better  day  could  bring  light  and 
hope  to  the  Tenth  Ward. 

What  became  of  the  people  who  were  dispos- 
sessed ?  The  answer  to  that  is  the  reply,  too,  to 
the  wail  that  goes  up  from  the  speculative  builder 
every  time  we  put  the  screws  on  the  tenement 
house  law.  It  does  not  pay  him  to  build  any  more, 
he  says.  But  when  the  multitudes  of  Mulberry 
Bend,  of  Hester  Street,  and  of  the  Bone  Alley  Park 
were  put  out,  there  was  more  than  room  enough 
for  them  in  new  houses  ready  for  their  use.  In  the 
Seventh,  Tenth,  Eleventh,  Thirteenth,  and  Seven- 
teenth wards,  where  they  would  naturally  go  if  they 
wanted  to  be  near  home,  there  were  4268  vacant 
apartments  with  room  for  over  18,000  tenants  at 
our  New  York  average  of  four  and  a  half  to  the 
family.  Including  the  Bend,  the  whole  number 
of  the  dispossessed  was  not  12,000.  On  Manhat- 
tan   Island    there   were   at    that   time   more    than 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  287 

37,000  vacant  flats,  so  that  it  seems  those  builders 
were  either  "  talking  through  their  hats,"  or  else  they 
were  philanthropists  pure  and  simple.  And  I  know 
they  were  not  that.  The  whole  question  of  re- 
housing the  population  that  had  been  so  carefully 
considered  abroad  made  us  no  trouble,  though  it 
gave  a  few  well-meaning  people  unnecessary  concern. 
The  unhoused  were  scattered  some,  which  was 
one  of  the  things  we  hoped  for,  but  hardly  dared 
believe  would  come  to  pass.  Many  of  them,  as  it 
appeared,  had  remained  in  their  old  slum  more 
from  force  of  habit  and  association  than  because  of 
necessity. 

"  Everything  takes  ten  years,"  said  Abram  S. 
Hewitt,  when,  exactly  ten  years  after  he  had  as 
mayor  championed  the  Small  Parks  Act,  he  took 
his  seat  as  chairman  of  the  Advisory  Committee 
on  Small  Parks.  The  ten  years  had  wrought  a 
great  change.  It  was  no  longer  the  slum  of  to-day, 
but  that  of  to-morrow,  that  challenged  attention. 
The  committee  took  the  point  of  view  of  the  chil- 
dren from  the  first.  It  had  a  large  map  prepared, 
showing  where  in  the  city  there  was  room  to  play 
and  where  there  was  none.  Then  it  called  in  the 
police  and  asked  them  to  point  out  where  there 
was  trouble  with  the  boys;  and  in  every  instance 
the  policeman  put  his  finger  upon  a  treeless  slum. 

"  They  have  no  other  playground  than  the  street," 


288  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

was  the  explanation  given  in  each  case.  "  They 
smash  lamps  and  break  windows.  The  storekeepers 
kick  and  there  is  trouble.  That  is  how  it  begins." 
"  Many  complaints  are  received  daily  of  boys  annoy- 
ing pedestrians,  storekeepers,  and  tenants  by  their 
continually  playing  baseball  in  some  parts  of  almost 
every  street.  The  damage  is  not  slight.  Arrests 
are  frequent,  much  more  frequent  than  when  they 
had  open  lots  to  play  in. "  This  last  was  the  report 
of  an  up-town  captain.  He  remembered  the  days 
when  there  were  open  lots  there.  "  But  those  lots 
are  now  built  upon,"  he  said,  "and  for  every  new 
house  there  are  more  boys  and  less  chance  for  them 
to  play." 

The  committee  put  a  red  daub  on  the  map  to  in- 
dicate trouble.  Then  it  asked  those  police  captains 
who  had  not  spoken  to  show  them  where  their  pre- 
cincts were,  and  why  they  had  no  trouble.  Every 
one  of  them  put  his  finger  on  a  green  spot  that 
marked  a  park. 

"  My  people  are  quiet  and  orderly,"  said  the  cap- 
tain of  the  Tompkins  Square  precinct. 

The  police  took  the  square  from  a  mob  by  storm 
twice  in  my  recollection,  and  the  commander  of  the 
precinct  was  hit  on  the  head  with  a  hammer  by  "  his 
people  "  and  laid  out  for  dead. 

"  The  Hook  Gang  is  gone,"  said  he  of  Corlears 
Hook.     The  professional  pursuit  of  that  gang  was 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT 


289 


to  rob  and  murder  inoffensive  citizens  by  night  and 
throw  them  into  the  river,  and  it  achieved  a  bad 
eminence  at  its  calHng. 

"  The  whole  neighborhood  has   taken  a  change, 
and  decidedly  for  the  better,"  said  the  captain   of 


Mulberry  Bend  Park. 

Mulberry  Street ;  and  the  committee  rose  and  said 
that  it  had  heard  enough. 

The  map  was  hung  on  the  wall,  and  in  it  were 
stuck  pins  to  mark  the  site  of  present  and  projected 
schools  as  showing  where  the  census  had  found  the 
children  crowding.  The  moment  that  was  done  the 
committee  sent  the  map  and  a  copy  of  chapter  338 


290  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

of  the  laws  of  1895  to  the  mayor,  and  reported  that 
its  task  was  finished.  This  is  the  law  and  all  there 
is  of  it :  — 

"  The  people  of  the  State  of  New  York,  represented 
in  Senate  and  Assembly,  do  enact  as  follows :  — 

"Section  i.  Hereafter  no  schoolhouse  shall  be 
constructed  in  the  city  of  New  York  without  an 
open-air  playground  attached  to  or  used  in  connec- 
tion with  the  same. 

"  Section  2.  This  act  shall  take  effect  im- 
mediately." 

Where  the  map  was  daubed  with  red  the  school 
pins  crowded  one  another.  On  the  lower  East 
Side,  where  child  crime  was  growing  fast,  and  no 
less  than  three  storm  centres  were  marked  down 
by  the  police,  nine  new  schools  were  going  up  or 
planned,  and  in  the  up-town  precinct  whence  came 
the  wail  about  the  ball  players  there  were  seven. 
It  was  common  sense,  then,  to  hitch  the  school 
playground  and  the  children  together.  It  seemed 
a  happy  combination,  for  the  new  law  had  been 
a  stumbling-block  to  the  school  commissioners, 
who  were  in  a  quandary  over  the  needful  size  of 
an  "open-air  playground."  The  roof  garden  idea, 
which  was  at  the  start  a  measure  of  simple  economy 
to  save  large  expenditure  for  land,  had  suggested 
a  way  out.  But  there  was  the  long  vacation,  when 
schools   are   closed  and   children  most   in  need  of 


LETTING   IN   THE  LIGHT 


291 


Roof  Playground  on  a  Public  School. 

a  chance  to  play.  To  get  the  playground  on  the 
roof  of  the  schoolhouse  recognized  as  the  public 
playground  seemed  a  long  step  toward  turning 
it  into  a  general  neighborhood  evening  resort, 
that  should  be  always  open,  and  so  towards  bring- 
ing school  and  people,  and  especially  the  school 
and  the  boy,  together  in  a  bond  of  mutual  sym- 
pathy good  for  them  both. 

That  was  the  burden  of  the  committee's  report. 
It  made  thirteen  recommendations  besides,  as  to 
the  location  of  parks  and  detached  playgrounds, 
only  two  of  which  have  been  adopted  to  date. 
But   that   is   of   less   account  —  as   also   was   the 


292  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

information  imparted  to  me  as  secretary  of  the 
committee  by  our  late  Tammany  mayor  —  and 
may  he  be  the  last  —  that  we  had  "as  much 
authority  as  a  committee  of  bootblacks  in  his 
office"  —  it  is  all  of  less  account  than  the  fact  that 
the  field  has  at  last  been  studied  and  its  needs 
been  made  known.  The  rest  will  follow,  with  or 
without  the  politician's  authority.  One  of  the 
two  suggestions  carried  out  was  for  a  riverside  park 
in  the  region  up-town,  on  the  West  Side,  where 
the  Federation  of  Churches  and  Christian  Workers 
found  "  saloon  social  ideals  minting  themselves  upon 
the  minds  of  the  people  at  the  rate  of  seven  saloon 
thoughts  to  one  educational  thought.'"  "Hudson- 
bank  "  (it  is  at  the  foot  of  West  Fifty-third  Street) 
has  been  a  playground  these  three  years,  in  the 
charge  of  the  Outdoor  Recreation  League,  and  it 
is  recorded  with  pride  by  the  directors,  that  not 
a  board  was  stolen  from  the  long  fence  that  en- 
closes it  in  all  that  time,  while  fences  all  about 
were  ripped  to  pieces.  Boards  have  a  market 
value  in  that  neighborhood  and  private  property 
was  not  always  highly  regarded.  But  this  is  "  the 
children's";  that  is  why,  within  a  year  now,  the 
bluff  upon  which  the  playground  is  will  have  been 
laid  out  as  a  beautiful  park,  and  a  bar  set  to  the 
slum  in  that  quarter,  where  it  already  had  got  a 
firm  grip.     Hard  by  there  is  a  recreation  pier,  and 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  293 

on  summer  evenings  the  young  men  of  the  neigh- 
borhood may  be  seen  trooping  riverward  with  their 
girls  to  hear  the  music.  The  gang  that  "laid  out" 
two  policemen,  to  my  knowledge,  has  gone  out  of 
business. 

The  best-laid  plans  are  sometimes  upset  by 
surprising  snags.  We  had  planned  for  two  munic- 
ipal playgrounds  on  the  East  Side,  where  the 
need  is  greatest,  and  our  plans  were  eagerly 
accepted  by  the  city  authorities.  But  they  were 
never  put  into  practice.  A  negligent  attorney 
killed  one,  a  lazy  clerk  the  other.  And  both  served 
under  the  reform  government.  The  first  of  the  two 
playgrounds  was  to  have  been  in  Rivington  Street, 
adjoining  the  new  public  bath,  where  the  boys,  for 
want  of  something  better  to  do,  were  fighting  daily 
battles  with  stones,  to  the  great  damage  of  windows 
and  the  worse  aggravation  of  the  householders. 
Four  hundred  children  in  that  neighborhood  pe- 
titioned the  committee  for  a  place  of  their  own, 
where  there  were  no  windows  to  break ;  and  we 
found  one.  It  was  only  after  the  proceedings  had 
been  started  that  we  discovered  that  they  had  been 
taken  under  the  wrong  law  and  the  money  spent  in 
advertising  had  been  wasted.  It  was  then  too  late. 
The  daily  assaults  upon  the  windows  were  resumed. 

The  other  case  was  an  attempt  to  establish  a 
model  school  park  in  a  block  where  more  than  four 


294  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

thousand  children  attended  day  and  night  school. 
The  public  school  and  the  Pro-Cathedral,  which 
divided  the  children  between  them,  were  to  be  al- 
lowed to  stand,  at  opposite  ends  of  the  block.  The 
surrounding  tenements  were  to  be  torn  down  to 
make  room  for  a  park  and  playground  which  should 
embody  the  ideal  of  what  such  a  place  ought  to  be, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  committee.  For  the  roof 
garden  was  not  in  the  original  plan  except  as  an  al- 
ternative of  the  street-level  playground,  where  land 
came  too  high.  The  plentiful  supply  of  light  and 
air,  the  safety  from  fire,  to  be  obtained  by  putting  the 
school  in  a  park,  beside  the  fact  that  it  could  thus  be 
"  built  beautiful,"  were  considerations  of  weight. 
Plans  were  made,  and  there  was  great  rejoicing  in 
Essex  Street,  until  it  came  out  that  this  scheme  had 
gone  the  way  of  the  other.  The  clerk  who  should 
have  filed  the  plans  in  the  register's  office  left  that 
duty  to  some  one  else,  and  it  took  just  twenty-one 
days  to  make  the  journey,  a  distance  of  five  hundred 
feet  or  less.  The  Greater  New  York  had  come  then 
with  Tammany,  and  the  thing  was  not  heard  of 
again.  When  I  traced  the  failure  down  to  the 
clerk  in  question,  and  told  him  that  he  had  killed 
the  park,  he  yawned  and  said :  — 

"  Yes,  and  I  think  it  is  just  as  w^ell  it  is  dead. 
We  haven't  any  money  for  those  things.  It  is  very 
nice  to  have  small  parks,  and  very  nice  to  have  a 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  295 

horse  and  wagon,  if  you  can  afford  it.  But  we  can't. 
Why,  there  isn't  enough  to  run  the  city  government." 

So  the  labor  of  weary  weeks  and  months  in  the 
children's  behalf  was  all  undone  by  a  third-rate 
clerk  in  an  executive  office ;  but  he  saved  the  one 
thing  he  had  in  mind :  the  city  government  is  "  run  " 
to  date,  and  his  pay  is  secure. 

It  is  a  pity  to  have  to  confess  it,  but  it  was  not 
the  only  time  reform  in  office  gave  its  cause  a  black 
eye  in  the  sight  of  the  people.  The  Hamilton  Fish 
Park  that  took  the  place  of  Bone  Alley  was  laid 
out  with  such  lack  of  sense  that  it  will  have  to 
be  worked  all  over  again.  The  gymnasium  and 
bath  in  it  that  cost,  I  am  told,  $90,000,  was  never  of 
any  use  for  either  purpose  and  was  never  opened. 
A  policeman  sat  in  the  door  and  turned  people  away, 
while  around  the  corner  clamoring  crowds  besieged 
the  new  public  bath  I  spoke  of.  There  were  more 
people  waiting,  sitting  on  the  steps  and  strung  out 
halfway  through  the  block,  when  I  went  over  to  see, 
one  July  day,  than  could  have  found  room  in  three 
buildings  like  it.  So,  also,  after  seven  years,  the 
promised  park  down  by  the  Schiff  Fountain  called 
Seward  Park  lies  still,  an  unlovely  waste,  waiting  to 
be  made  beautiful.  Tammany  let  its  heelers  build 
shanties  in  it  to  sell  fish  and  dry-goods  and  such  in. 
Reform  just  let  things  be,  no  matter  how  bad  they 
were,  and  broke  its  promises  to  the  people. 


296  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

No,  that  is  not  fair.  There  was  enough  to  do  be- 
sides, to  straighten  up  things.  Tammany  had  seen  to 
that.  This  very  day  ^  the  contractor's  men  are  be- 
ginning work  in  Seward  Park,  which  shall  give  that 
most  crowded  spot  on  earth  its  pleasure-ground,  and 
I  have  warrant  for  promising  that  within  a  year  not 
only  will  the  "  Ham-Fish "  Park  be  restored,  but 
Hudsonbank  and  the  Thomas  Jefferson  Park  in 
Little  Italy,  which  are  still  dreary  wastes,  be  opened 
to  the  people ;  while  from  the  Civic  Club  in  Richard 
Croker's  old  home  ward  comes  the  broad  hint  that 
unless  condemnation  proceedings  in  the  case  of  the 
park  and  playground,  to  take  the  place  of  the  old 
tenements  at  East  Thirty-fifth  Street  and  Second 
Avenue,  are  hurried  by  the  Tammany  Commission, 
the  club  will  take  a  hand  and  move  to  have  the 
commission  cashiered.  There  is  to  be  no  repetition 
of  the  Mulberry  Bend  scandal. 

It  is  all  right.  Neither  stupidity,  spite,  nor  cold- 
blooded neglect  will  be  able  much  longer  to  cheat 
the  child  out  of  his  rights.  The  playground  is  here 
to  wrestle  with  the  gang  for  the  boy,  and  it  will  win. 
It  came  so  quietly  that  we  hardly  knew  of  it  till  we 
heard  the  shouts.  It  took  us  seven  years  to  make  up 
our  minds  to  build  a  play  pier,  —  recreation  pier  is 
its  municipal  title,  —  and  it  took  just  about  seven 
weeks  to  build  it  when  we  got  so  far ;  but  then  we 

^June  26,  1901. 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  299 

learned  more  in  one  day  than  we  had  dreamed  of  in 
the  seven  years.  Half  the  East  Side  swarmed  over 
it  with  shrieks  of  delight,  and  carried  the  mayor  and 
the  city  government,  who  had  come  to  see  the  show, 
fairly  off  their  feet.  And  now  that  pier  has  more 
than  seven  comrades  —  great,  handsome  structures, 
seven  hundred  feet  long,  some  of  them,  with  music 
every  night  for  mother  and  the  babies,  and  for  papa, 
who  can  smoke  his  pipe  there  in  peace.  The  moon 
shines  upon  the  quiet  river,  and  the  steamers  go  by 
with  their  lights.  The  street  is  far  away  with  its 
noise.  The  young  people  go  sparking  in  all  honor, 
as  it  is  their  right  to  do.  The  councilman  who 
spoke  of  "  pernicious  influences "  lying  in  wait  for 
them  there  made  the  mistake  of  his  life,  unless  he 
has  rnade  up  his  mind  to  go  out  of  politics.  That 
is  just  a  question  of  effective  superintendence,  as  is 
true  of  model  tenements,  and  everything  else  in  this 
world.  You  have  got  to  keep  the  devil  out  of 
everything,  yourself  included.  He  will  get  in  if  he 
can,  as  he  got  into  the  Garden  of  Eden.  The  play 
piers  have  taken  a  hold  of  the  people  which  no 
crabbed  old  bachelor  can  loosen  with  trumped-up 
charges.  Their  civilizing  influence  upon  the  chil- 
dren is  already  felt  in  a  reported  demand  for  more 
soap  in  the  neighborhood  where  they  are,  and  even 
the  grocer  smiles  approval. 

The  play  pier  is  the  kindergarten  in  the  educa- 


300  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

tional  campaign  against  the  gang.  It  gives  the  lit- 
tle ones  a  chance.  Often  enough  it  is  a  chance  for 
life.  The  street  as  a  playground  is  a  heavy  contrib- 
utor to  the  undertaker's  bank  account  in  more  than 
one  way.  Distinguished  doctors  said  at  the  tuber- 
culosis congress  this  spring  that  it  is  to  blame  with 
its  dust  for  sowing  the  seeds  of  that  fatal  disease  in 
the  half-developed  bodies.  I  kept  the  police  slips 
of  a  single  day  in  May  two  years  ago,  when  four  lit- 
tle ones  were  killed  and  three  crushed  under  the 
wheels  of  trucks  in  tenement  streets.  That  was  un- 
usual, but  no  day  has  passed  in  my  recollection  that 
has  not  had  its  record  of  accidents,  which  bring  grief 
as  deep  and  lasting  to  the  humblest  home  as  if  it 
were  the  pet  of  some  mansion  on  Fifth  Avenue  that 
was  slain.  In  the  Hudson  Guild  on  the  West  Side 
they  have  the  reports  of  ten  children  that  were 
killed  in  the  street  immediately  around  there.  The 
kindergarten  teaching  has  borne  fruit.  Private  initi- 
ative set  the  pace,  but  the  playground  idea  has  at  last 
been  engrafted  upon  the  municipal  plan.  The  Out- 
door Recreation  League  was  organized  by  public- 
spirited  citizens,  including  many  amateur  athletes  and 
enthusiastic  women,  with  the  object  of  "obtaining 
recognition  of  the  necessity  for  recreation  and  physi- 
cal exercise  as  fundamental  to  the  moral  and 
physical  welfare  of  the  people."  Together  with  the 
School  Reform  Club  and  the  Federation  of  Churches 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT 


301 


and  Christian  Workers,  it  maintained  a  playground 
on  the  up-town  West  Side  where  the  ball  came  into 
play  for  the  first  time  as  a  recognized  factor  in  civic 
progress.  ^  The  day  might  well  be  kept  for  all  time 


The  East  River  Park. 

among  those  that  mark  human  emancipation,  for  it 
was  social  reform  and  Christian  work  in  one,  of  the 
kind  that  tells. 

Only  the  year  before,  the  athletic  clubs  had 
vainly  craved  the  privilege  of  establishing  a  gymna- 
sium in  the  East  River  Park,  where  the  children 
wistfully  eyed  the  sacred  grass,  and  cowered  under 
the  withering  gaze  of  the  policeman.  A  friend 
whose  house  stands  opposite  the  park  found  them 


302  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

one  day  swarming  over  her  stoop  in  such  shoals 
that  she  could  not  enter,  and  asked  them  why  they 
did  not  play  tag  under  the  trees  instead.  The  in- 
stant shout  came  back,  "  'Cause  the  cop  won't  let 
us."  And  now  even  Poverty  Gap  is  to  have  its 
playground  —  Poverty  Gap,  that  was  partly  trans- 
formed by  its  one  brief  season's  experience  with 
its  Holy  Terror  Park,^  a  dreary  sand  lot  upon  the 
site  of  the  old  tenements  in  which  the  Alley  Gang 
murdered  the  one  good  boy  in  the  block,  for  the 
offence  of  supporting  his  aged  parents  by  his  work 
as  a  baker's  apprentice.  And  who  knows  but  the 
Mulberry  Bend  and  "  Paradise  Park "  at  the  Five 
Points  may  yet  know  the  climbing  pole  and  the 
vaulting  buck.  So  the  world  moves.  For  years 
the  city's  only  playground  that  had  any  claim  upon 
the  name  —  and  that  was  only  a  little  asphalted 
strip  behind  a  public  school  in  First  Street  —  was 
an  old  graveyard.  We  struggled  vainly  to  get 
possession  of  another,  long  abandoned.  But  the 
dead  were  of  more  account  than  the  living. 

But  now  at  last  it  is  their  turn.  I  watched  the 
crowds  at  their  play  where  Seward  Park  is  to 
be.  The  Outdoor  Recreation  League  had  put  up 
gymnastic  apparatus,  and  the  dusty  square  was 
jammed  with  a  mighty  multitude.     It  was  not  an 

^  The  name  bestowed  upon  it  by  the  older  toughs  before  the  fact, 
not  after. 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  303 

ideal  spot,  for  it  had  not  rained  in  weeks,  and 
powdered  sand  and  cinders  had  taken  wing  and 
floated  like  a  pall  over  the  perspiring  crowd.  But 
it  was  heaven  to  them.  A  hundred  men  and 
boys  stood  in  line,  waiting  their  turn  upon  the 
bridge  ladder  and  the  travelling  rings,  that  hung 
full  of  struggling  and  squirming  humanity,  groping 
madly  for  the  next  grip.  No  failure,  no  rebuff,  dis- 
couraged them.  Seven  boys  and  girls' rode  with 
looks  of  deep  concern  —  it  is  their  way  —  upon 
each  end  of  the  seesaw,  and  two  squeezed  into 
each  of  the  forty  swings  that  had  room  for  one, 
while  a  hundred  counted  time  and  saw  that  none 


The  Seward  Park. 

had  too  much.  It  is  an  article  of  faith  with  these 
children  that  nothing  that  is  "going"  for  their 
benefit  is  to  be  missed.  Sometimes  the  result  pro- 
vokes a  smile,  as  when  a  band  of  young  Jews,  start- 
ing up  a  club,  called  themselves  the  Christian 
Heroes.  It  was  meant  partly  as  a  compliment,  I 
suppose,  to  the  ladies  that  gave  them  club  room; 


304  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

but  at  the  same  time,  if  there  was  anything  in  a 
name,  they  were  bound  to  have  it.  It  is  rather  to 
cry  over  than  to  laugh  at,  if  one  but  understands 
it.  The  sight  of  these  little  ones  swarming  over  a 
sand  heap  until  scarcely  an  inch  of  it  was  in  sight, 
and  gazing  in  rapt  admiration  at  the  poor  show  of 
a  dozen  geraniums  and  English  ivy  plants  on  the 
window-sill  of  the  overseer's  cottage,  was  pathetic 
in  the  extreme.  They  stood  for  ten  minutes  at  a 
time,  resting  their  eyes  upon  them.  In  the  crowd 
were  aged  women  and  bearded  men  with  the  in- 
evitable Sabbath  silk  hat,  who  it  seemed  could 
never  get  enough  of  it.  They  moved  slowly,  when 
crowded  out,  looking  back  many  times  at  the  en- 
chanted spot,  as  long  as  it  was  in  sight. 

Perhaps  there  was  in  it,  on  the  part  of  the  chil- 
dren at  least,  just  a  little  bit  of  the  comforting  sense 
of  proprietorship.  They  had  contributed  of  their 
scant  pennies  more  than  a  hundred  dollars  toward 
the  opening  of  the  playground,  and  they  felt  that 
it  was  their  very  own.  All  the  better.  Two 
policemen  watched  the  passing  show,  grinning; 
their  clubs  hung  idly  from  their  belts.  The  words 
of  a  little  woman  whom  .1  met  once  in  Chicago 
kept  echoing  in  my  ear.  She  was  the  "  happiest 
woman  alive,"  for  she  had  striven  long  for  a  play- 
ground for  her  poor  children,  and  had  got  it. 

"  The  police  like  it,"  she  said.     "  They  say  that 


LETTING   IN  THE   LIGHT 


305 


The  Seward  Park  on  Opening  Day. 

it  will  do  more  good  than  all  the  Sunday-schools 
in  Chicago.  The  mothers  say,  '  This  is  good  busi- 
ness.' The  carpenters  that  put  up  the  swings  and 
things  worked  with  a  will ;  everybody  was  glad. 
The  police  lieutenant  has  had  a  tree  called  after  him. 
The  boys  that  did  that  used  to  be  terrors.  Now 
they  take  care  of  the  trees.  They  plead  for  a  low 
limb  that  is  in  the  way,  that  no  one  may  cut  it  off." 
The  twilight  deepens  and  the  gates  of  the  play- 
ground are  closed.  The  crowds  disperse  slowly. 
In  the  roof  garden  on  the  Hebrew  Institute  across 
East  Broadway  lights  are  twinkling  and  the  band 
is  tuning  up.  Little  groups  are  settling  down  to  a 
quiet   game   of   checkers   or  love-making.       Pater- 


3o6 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


familias  leans  back  against  the  parapet  where  palms 
wave  luxuriously  in  the  summer  breeze.  The  news- 
paper drops  from  his  hand ;  he  closes  his  eyes  and 
is  in  dreamland,  where  strikes  come  not.  Mother 
knits  contentedly  in  her  seat,  with  a  smile  on  her 
face  that  was  not  born  of  the  Ludlow  Street  tene- 
ment.     Over  yonder  a  knot  of  black-browed  men 


In  the  Roof  Garden  of  the  Hebrew  Educational  Alliance. 

talk  with  serious  mien.  They  might  be  met  any 
night  in  the  anarchist  cafe,  half  a  dozen  doors  away, 
holding  forth  against  empires.  Here  wealth  does 
not  excite  their  wrath,  nor  power  their  plotting. 
In  the  roof  garden  anarchy  is  harmless,  even  though 
a  policeman  typifies  its  government.  They  laugh 
pleasantly  to  one  another  as  he  passes,  and  he  gives 
them  a  match  to  light  their  cigars.  It  is  Thursday, 
and  smoking  is  permitted.      On    Friday  it  is    dis- 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  307 

couraged  because  it  offends  the  orthodox,  to  whom 
the  lighting  of  a  fire,  even  the  holding  of  a  candle, 
is  anathema  on  the  Sabbath  eve. 

The  band  plays  on.  One  after  another,  tired 
heads  droop  upon  babes  slumbering  peacefully  at 
the  breast.  Ludlow  Street — the  tenement  —  are 
forgotten;  eleven  o'clock  is  not  yet.  Down  along 
the  silver  gleam  of  the  river  a  mighty  city  slumbers. 
The  great  bridge  has  hung  out  its  string  of  shining 
pearls  from  shore  to  shore.  "  Sweet  land  of  liberty !  " 
Overhead  the  dark  sky,  the  stars  that  twinkled 
their  message  to  the  shepherds  on  Judaean  hills,  that 
lighted  their  sons  through  ages  of  slavery,  and  the 
flag  of  freedom  borne  upon  the  breeze,- — down 
there  the  tenement,  the  —  Ah,  well !  let  us  forget 
as  do  these. 

Now  if  you  ask  me :  "  And  what  of  it  all }  What 
does  it  avail  ? "  let  me  take  you  once  more  back  to 
the  Mulberry  Bend,  and  to  the  policeman's  verdict 
add  the  police  reporter's  story  of  what  has  taken 
place  there.  In  fifteen  years  I  never  knew  a  week 
to  pass  without  a  murder  there,  rarely  a  Sunday. 
It  was  the  wickedest,  as  it  was  the  foulest,  spot  in 
all  the  city.  In  the  slum  the  two  are  interchange- 
able terms  for  reasons  that  are  clear  enough  for  me. 
But  I  shall  not  speculate  about  it,  only  state  the 
facts.  The  old  houses  fairly  reeked  with  outrage 
and    violence.        When    they   were    torn    down,    I 


3o8 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


counted  seventeen  deeds  of  blood  in  that  place 
which  I  myself  remembered,  and  those  I  had  for- 
gotten probably  numbered  seven  times  seventeen. 
The  district  attorney  connected  more  than  a  score 
of   murders   of    his    own    recollection   with    Bottle 


Bottle  Alley,  Whyo  Gang's  Headquarters. 

This  picture  was  evidence  at  a  murder  trial.     The  X  marks  the  place  where  the  murderer 
stood  when  he  shot  his  victim  on  the  stairs. 

Alley,  the  Whyd  Gang's  headquarters.  Five  years 
have  passed  since  it  was  made  into  a  park,  and 
scarce  a  knife  had  been  drawn  or  a  shot  fired  in 
all  that  neighborhood.  Only  twice  have  I  been 
called  as  a  police  reporter  to  the  spot.  It  is  not 
that  the  murder  has  moved  to  another  neighbor- 


LETTING   IN   THE   LIGHT  309 

hood,  for  there  has  been  no  increase  of  violence 
in  Little  Italy  or  wherever  else  the  crowd  went 
that  moved  out.  It  is  that  the  light  has  come  in 
and  made  crime  hideous.  It  is  being  let  in  wher- 
ever the  slum  has  bred  murder  and  robbery,  bred 
the  gang,  in  the  past.  Wait,  now,  another  ten 
years,  and  let  us  see  what  a  story  there  will  be  to 
tell. 

Avail }  Why,  it  was  only  the  other  day  that 
Tammany  was  actually  caught  applauding '  Comp- 
troller Coler's  words  in  Plymouth  Church,  "  When- 
ever the  city  builds  a  schoolhouse  upon  the  site  of 
a  dive  and  creates  a  park,  a  distinct  and  permanent 
mental,  moral,  and  physical  improvement  has  been 
made,  and  public  opinion  will  sustain  such  a  policy, 
even  if  a  dive-keeper  is  driven  out  of  business  and 
somebody's  ground  rent  is  reduced."  And  Tam- 
many's press  agent,  in  his  enthusiasm,  sent  forth 
this  paean :  "  In  the  light  of  such  events  how  absurd 
it  is  for  the  enemies  of  the  organization  to  contend 
that  Tammany  is  not  the  greatest  moral  force  in 
the  community."  Tammany  a  moral  force !  The 
park  and  the  playground  have  availed,  then,  to 
bring  back  the  day  of  miracles. 

^  To  be  sure,  it  did  nothing  else.  When  the  people  asked  for 
$5000  to  fit  up  one  playground.  Mayor  Van  Wyck  replied  with  a  sneer 
that  "  Vaudeville  destroyed  Rome." 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE    PASSING    OF    CAT    ALLEY 

When  Santa  Claus  comes  around  to  New  York 
this  Christmas  he  will  look  in  vain  for  some  of  the 
slum  alleys  he  used  to  know.  They  are  gone. 
Where  some  of  them  were,  there  are  shrubs  and  trees 
and  greensward ;  the  sites  of  others  are  holes  and 
hillocks  yet,  that  by  and  by,  when  all  the  official  red 
tape  is  unwound,  —  and  what  a  lot  of  it  there  is  to 
plague  mankind  !  —  will  be  levelled  out  and  made 
into  playgrounds  for  little  feet  that  have  been  ach- 
ing for  them  too  long.  Perhaps  it  will  surprise 
some  good  people  to  hear  that  Santa  Claus  knew 
the  old  allevs ;  but  he  did.  I  have  been  there  with 
him,  and  I  knew  that,  much  as  some  things  which 
he  saw  there  grieved  him,  —  the  starved  childhood, 
the  pinching  poverty,  and  the  slovenly  indifference 
that  cut  deeper  than  the  rest  because  it  spoke  of 
hope  that  was  dead,  —  yet  by  nothing  was  his  gen- 
tle spirit  so  grieved  and  shocked  as  by  the  show 
that  proposed  to  turn  his  holiday  into  a  battalion 
drill  of  the  children  from  the  alleys  and  the  courts 
for  patricians,  young  and  old,    to  review.      It  was 

3IO 


THE   PASSING  OF   CAT  ALLEY  311 

well  meant,  but  it  was  not  Christmas.  That  be- 
longs to  the  home,  and  in  the  darkest  slums 
Santa  Claus  found  homes  where  his  blessed  tree 
took  root  and  shed  its  mild  radiance  about,  dispel- 
ling the  darkness,  and  bringing  back  hope  and  cour- 
age and  trust. 

They  are  gone,  the  old  alleys.  Reform  wiped 
them  out.  It  is  well.  Santa  Claus  will  not  have 
harder  work  finding  the  doors  that  opened  to  him 
gladly,  because  the  light  has  been  let  in.  And 
others  will  stand  ajar  that  before  were  closed.  The 
chimneys  in  tenement-house  alleys  were  never  built 
on  a  plan  generous  enough  to  let  him  in  in  the 
orthodox  way.  The  cost  of  coal  had  to  be  con- 
sidered in  putting  them  up.  Bottle  Alley  and 
Bandits'  Roost  are  gone  with  their  bad  memories. 
Bone  Alley  is  gone,  and  Gotham  Court.  I  well 
remember  the  Christmas  tree  in  the  court,  under 
which  a  hundred  dolls  stood  in  line,  craving  part- 
ners among  the  girls  in  its  tenements.  That  was 
the  kind  of  battalion  drill  that  they  understood. 
The  ceiling  of  the  room  was  so  low  that  the  tree 
had  to  be  cut  almost  in  half ;  but  it  was  beautiful, 
and  it  lives  yet,  I  know,  in  the  hearts  of  the  little 
ones,  as  it  lives  in  mine.  The  "Barracks"  are  gone, 
Nibsey's  Alley  is  gone,  where  the  first  Christmas 
tree  was  lighted  the  night  poor  Nibsey  lay  dead  in 
his  coffin.     And  Cat  Alley  is  gone. 


312 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


Cat  Alley  was  my  alley.  It  was  mine  by  right  of 
long  acquaintance.  We  were  neighbors  for  twenty 
years.  Yet  I  never  knew  why  it  was  called  Cat 
Alley.  There  was  the  usual  number  of  cats,  gaunt 
and  voracious,  which  foraged  in  its  ash-barrels ;  but 
beyond  the  family  of   three-legged  cats,  that  pre- 


The  First  Christmas  Tree  in  Gotham  Court. 


sented  its  own  problem  of  heredity,  —  the  kittens 
took  it  from  the  mother,  who  had  lost  one  leg  under 
the  wheels  of  a  dray,  —  there  was  nothing  specially 
remarkable  about  them.  It  was  not  an  alley,  either, 
when  it  comes  to  that,  but  rather  a  row  of  four  or 
five  old  tenements  in  a  back  yard  that  was  reached 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  313 

by  a  passageway  somewhat  less  than  three  feet  wide 
between  the  sheer  walls  of  the  front  houses.  These 
had  once  had  pretensions  to  some  style.  One  of 
them  had  been  the  parsonage  of  the  church  next 
door  that  had  by  turns  been  an  old-style  Methodist 
tabernacle,  a  fashionable  negroes'  temple,  and  an 
Italian  mission  church,  thus  marking  time,  as  it 
were,  to  the  upward  movement  of  the  immigration 
that  came  in  at  the  bottom,  down  in  the  Fourth 
Ward,  fought  its  way  through  the  Bloody  Sixth, 
and  by  the  time  it  had  travelled  the  length  of  Mul- 
berry Street  had  acquired  a  local  standing  and  the 
right  to  be  counted  and  rounded  up  by  the  political 
bosses.  Now  the  old  houses  were  filled  with  news- 
paper offices  and  given  over  to  perpetual  insomnia. 
Week-days  and  Sundays,  night  or  day,  they  never 
slept.  Police  headquarters  was  right  across  the 
way,  and  kept  the  reporters  awake.  From  his  win- 
dow the  chief  looked  down  the  narrow  passageway 
to  the  bottom  of  the  alley,  and  the  alley  looked  back 
at  him,  nothing  daunted.  No  man  is  a  hero  to  his 
valet,  and  the  chief  was  not  an  autocrat  to  Cat 
Alley.  It  knew  all  his  human  weaknesses,  could 
tell  when  his  time  was  up  generally  before  he  could, 
and  winked  the  other  eye  with  the  captains  when 
the  newspapers  spoke  of  his  having  read  them  a 
severe  lecture  on  gambling  or  Sunday  beer-selling. 
Byrnes  it  worshipped,  but  for  the  others  who  were 


314  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

before  him  and  followed  after,  it  cherished  a  neigh- 
borly sort  of  contempt. 

In  the  character  of  its  population  Cat  Alley  was 
properly  cosmopolitan.  The  only  element  that  was 
missing  was  the  native  American,  and  in  this  also 
it  was  representative  of  the  tenement  districts  in 
America's  chief  city.  The  substratum  was  Irish,  of 
volcanic  properties.  Upon  this  were  imposed  layers 
of  German,  French,  Jewish,  and  Italian,  or,  as  the 
alley  would  have  put  it,  Dutch,  Sabe,  Sheeny,  and 
Dago ;  but  to  this  last  it  did  not  take  kindly.  With 
the  experience  of  the  rest  of  Mulberry  Street  before 
it,  it  foresaw  its  doom  if  the  Dago  got  a  footing 
there,  and  within  a  month  of  the  moving  in  of  the 
Gio  family  there  was  an  eruption  of  the  basement 
volcano,  reenforced  by  the  sanitary  policeman,  to 
whom  complaint  had  been  made  that  there  were  too 
many  "  Ginnies  "  in  the  Gio  flat.  There  were  four 
—  about  half  as  many  as  there  were  in  some  of  the 
other  flats  when  the  item  of  house  rent  was  lessened 
for  economic  reasons;  but  it  covered  the  ground: 
the  flat  was  too  small  for  the  Gios.  The  appeal  of 
the  signora  was  unavailing.  "  You  got-a  three  bam- 
bino," she  said  to  the  housekeeper,  "all  four,  lika 
me,"  counting  the  number  on  her  fingers.  "  I  no 
putta  me  broder-in-law  and  me  sister  in  the  street-a. 
Italian  lika  to  be  together." 

The  housekeeper  was  unmoved.     "  Humph  !  "she 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  315 

said,  "  to  liken  my  kids  to  them  Dagos !  Out  they 
go."     And  they  went. 

Up  on  the  third  floor  there  was  the  French  couple. 
It  was  another  of  the  contradictions  of  the  alley  that 
of  this  pair  the  man  should  have  been  a  typical, 
stolid  German,  she  a  mercurial  Parisian,  who  at  sev- 
enty sang  the  "  Marseillaise  "  with  all  the  spirit  of 
the  Commune  in  her  cracked  voice,  and  hated  from 
the  bottom  of  her  patriotic  soul  the  enemy  with 
whom  the  irony  of  fate  had  yoked  her.-  However, 
she  improved  the  opportunity  in  truly  French  fash- 
ion. He  was  rheumatic,  and  most  of  the  time  was 
tied  to  his  chair.  He  had  not  worked  for  seven 
years.  "  He  no  goode,"  she  said,  with  a  grimace,  as 
her  nimble  fingers  fashioned  the  wares  by  the  sale 
of  which,  from  a  basket,  she  supported  them  both. 
The  wares  were  dancing  girls  with  tremendous 
limbs  and  very  brief  skirts  of  tricolor  gauze,  —  "  bal- 
lerinas," in  her  vocabulary,  —  and  monkeys  with  tin 
hats,  cunningly  made  to  look  like  German  soldiers. 
For  these  she  taught  him  to  supply  the  decorations. 
It  was  his  department,  she  reasoned ;  the  ballerinas 
were  of  her  country  and  hers.  Parbleu  !  must  one 
not  work?  What  then  ?  Starve?  Before  her  look 
and  gesture  the  cripple  quailed,  and  twisted  and 
rolled  and  pasted  all  day  long,  to  his  country's 
shame,  fuming  with  impotent  rage. 

"  I  wish  the  devil  had  you,"  he  growled. 


3l6  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

She  regarded  him  maliciously,  with  head  tilted  on 
one  side,  as  a  bird  eyes  a  caterpillar  it  has  speared. 

"  Hein  !  "  she  scoffed.     "  Du  den,  vat  ?  " 

He  scowled.  She  was  right ;  without  her  he  was 
helpless.  The  judgment  of  the  alley  was  unim- 
peachable. They  were  and  remained  "  the  French 
couple." 

Cat  Alley's  reception  of  Madame  Klotz  at  first 
was  not  cordial.  It  was  disposed  to  regard  as  a 
hostile  act  the  circumstance  that  she  kept  a  special 
holiday,  of  which  nothing  was  known  except  from 
her  statement  that  it  referred  to  the  fall  of  somebody 
or  other  whom  she  called  the  Bastille,  in  suspicious 
proximity  to  the  detested  battle  of  the  Boyne ;  but 
when  it  was  observed  that  she  did  nothing  worse 
than  dance  upon  the  flags  "  avec  ze  leetle  bebe  "  of  the 
tenant  in  the  basement,  and  torture  her  *'  Dootch  " 
husband  with  extra  monkeys  and  gibes  in  honor  of. 
the  day,  unfavorable  judgment  was  suspen'^ed,  and 
it  was  agreed  that  without  a  doubt  the  "  bastard  " 
fell  for  cause ;  wherein  the  alley  showed  its  sound 
historical  judgment.  By  such  moral  pressure  when 
it  could,  by  force  when  it  must,  the  original  Irish 
stock  preserved  the  alley  for  its  own  quarrels,  free 
from  "  foreign  "  embroilments.  These  quarrels  were 
many  and  involved.  When  Mrs.  M'Carthy  was  to 
be  dispossessed,  and  insisted,  in  her  cups,  on  kill- 
ing the  housekeeper  as  a  necessary  preliminary,  a 


The  Mouth  of  the  Alley. 

By  permission  of  the  Century   Company. 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  319 

study  of  the  causes  that  led  to  the  feud  developed 
the  following  normal  condition  :  Mrs.  M'Carthy  had 
the  housekeeper's  place  when  Mrs.  Gehegan  was 
poor,  and  fed  her  "  kids."  As  a  reward,  Mrs.  Ge- 
hegan worked  around  and  got  the  job  away  from 
her.  Now  that  it  was  Mrs.  M'Carthy 's  turn  to  be 
poor,  Mrs.  Gehegan  insisted  upon  putting  her  out. 
Whereat,  with  righteous  wrath,  Mrs.  M'Carthy  pro- 
claimed from  the  stoop :  "  Many  is  the  time  Mrs. 
Gehegan  had  a  load  on,  an'  she  went  upstairs  an' 
slept  it  off.  I  didn't.  I  used  to  show  meself,  I  did, 
as  a  lady.  I  know  ye're  in  there,  Mrs.  Gehegan. 
Come  out  an'  show  yerself,  an'  I'ave  the  alley  to 
judge  betwixt  us."  To  which  Mrs.  Gehegan  pru- 
dently vouchsafed  no  answer. 

Mrs.  M'Carthy  had  succeeded  to  the  office  of 
housekeeper  upon  the  death  of  Miss  Mahoney,  an 
ancient  spinster  who  had  collected  the  rents  since 
the  days  of  "  the  riot,"  meaning  the  Orange  riot  — 
an  event  from  which  the  alley  reckoned  its  time, 
as  the  ancients  did  from  the  Olympian  games. 
Miss  Mahoney  was  a  most  exemplary  and  worthy 
old  lady,  thrifty  to  a  fault.  Indeed,  it  was  said 
when  she  was  gone  that  she  had  literally  starved 
herself  to  death  to  lay  by  money  for  the  rainy  day 
she  was  keeping  a  lookout  for  to  the  last.  In  this 
she  was  obeying  her  instincts;  but  they  went 
counter  to  those  of  the  alley,  and  the   result  was 


320  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

very  bad.  As  an  example,  Miss  Mahoney's  life  was 
a  failure.  When  at  her  death  it  was  discovered 
that  she  had  bank-books  representing  a  total  of  two 
thousand  dollars,  her  nephew  and  only  heir  promptly 
knocked  off  work  and  proceeded  to  celebrate,  which 
he  did  with  such  fervor  that  in  two  months  he  had 
run  through  it  all  and  killed  himself  by  his  ex- 
cesses. Miss  Mahoney's  was  the  first  bank  account 
in  the  alley,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  last. 

From  what  I  have  said,  it  must  not  be  supposed 
that  fighting  was  the  normal  occupation  of  Cat 
Alley.  It  was  rather  its  relaxation  from  unceasing 
toil  and  care,  from  which  no  to-morrow  held  prom- 
ise of  relief.  There  was  a  deal  of  good  humor  in 
it  at  most  times.  "  Scrapping "  came  naturally  to 
the  alley.  When,  as  was  sometimes  the  case,  it 
was  the  complement  of  a  wake,  it  was  as  the  mirth 
of  children  who  laugh  in  the  dark  because  they  are 
afraid.  But  once  an  occurrence  of  that  sort  scanda- 
lized the  tenants.  It  was  because  of  the  violation 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  to  which,  as  I  have  said, 
the  alley  held  most  firmly,  with  severely  local  appli- 
cation. To  Mulberry  Street  Mott  Street  was  a 
foreign  foe  from  which  no  interference  was  desired 
or  long  endured.  A  tenant  in  "  the  back  "  had  died 
in  the  hospital  of  rheumatism,  a  term  which  in  the 
slums  sums  up  all  of  poverty's  hardships,  scant  and 
poor  food,   damp   rooms,  and  hard  work,  and  the 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT  ALLEY  32 1 

family  had  come  home  for  the  funeral.  It  was  not 
a  pleasant  home-coming.  The  father  in  his  day 
had  been  strict,  and  his  severity  had  driven  his 
girls  to  the  street.  They  had  landed  in  Chinatown, 
with  all  that  implies,  one  at  a  time ;  first  the  older 
and  then  the  younger,  whom  the  sister  took  under 
her  wing  and  coached.  She  was  very  handsome, 
was  the  younger  sister,  with  an  innocent  look  in 
her  blue  eyes  that  her  language  belied,  and  smart, 
as  her  marriage-ring  bore  witness  to.  The  alley, 
where  the  proprieties  were  held  to  tenaciously, 
observed  it  and  forgave  all  the  rest,  even  her 
"  Chink "  husband.  While  her  father  was  lying 
ill,  she  had  spent  a  brief  vacation  in  the  alley. 
Now  that  he  was  dead,  her  less  successful  sister 
came  home,  and  with  her  a  delegation  of  girls  from 
Chinatown.  In  their  tawdry  finery  they  walked 
in,  sallow  and  bold,  with  Mott  Street  and  the  ac- 
cursed pipe  written  all  over  them,  defiant  of  public 
opinion,  yet  afraid  to  enter  except  in  a  body.  The 
alley  considered  them  from  behind  closed  blinds, 
while  the  children  stood  by  silently  to  see  them 
pass.  When  one  of  them  offered  one  of  the  "  kids  " 
a  penny,  he  let  it  fall  on  the  pavement,  as  if  it  were 
unclean.  It  was  a  sore  thrust,  and  it"  hurt  cruelly ; 
but  no  one  saw  it  in  her  face  as  she  went  in  where 
the  dead  lay,  with  scorn  and  hatred  as  her  offering. 
The  alley  had  withheld  audible  comment  with 


322  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

a  tact  that  did  it  credit ;  but  when  at  night  Mott 
Street  added  its  contingent  of  "  fellows "  to  the 
mourners  properly  concerned  in  the  wake,  and  they 
started  a  fight  among  themselves  that  was  un- 
authorized by  local  sanction,  its  wrath  was  aroused, 
and  it  arose  and  bundled  the  whole  concern  out 
into  the  street  with  scant  ceremony.  There  was 
never  an  invasion  of  the  alley  after  that  night.  It 
enjoyed  home  rule  undisturbed. 

Withal,  there  was  as  much  kindness  of  heart  and 
neighborly  charity  in  Cat  Alley  as  in  any  little 
community  up-town  or  down-town,  or  out  of  town, 
for  that  matter.  It  had  its  standards  and  its  cus- 
toms, which  were  to  be  observed ;  but  underneath 
it  all,  and  not  very  far  down  either,  was  a  human 
fellowship  that  was  capable  of  any  sacrifice  to  help 
a  friend  in  need.  Many  was  the  widow  with  whom 
and  with  whose  children  the  alley  shared  its  daily 
bread,  which  was  scanty  enough,  God  knows,  when 
death  or  other  disaster  had  brought  her  to  the 
jumping-off  place.  In  twenty  years  I  do  not  re- 
call a  suicide  in  the  alley,  or  a  case  of  suffering 
demanding  the  interference  of  the  authorities,  un- 
less with  such  help  as  the  hospital  could  give. 
The  alley  took  care  of  its  own,  and  tided  them  over 
the  worst  when  it  came  to  that.  And  death  was 
not  always  the  worst.  I  remember  yet  with  a 
shudder  a  tragedy  which    I   was  just  in  time  with 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  323 

the  police  to  prevent.  A  laborer,  who  lived  in  the 
attic,  had  gone  mad,  poisoned  by  the  stenches  of 
the  sewers  in  which  he  worked.  For  two  nights 
he  had  been  pacing  the  hallway,  muttering  incoher- 
ent things,  and  then  fell  to  sharpening  an  axe,  with 
his  six  children  playing  about  —  beautiful,  brown- 
eyed  girls  they  were,  sweet  and  innocent  little  tots. 
In  five  minutes  we  should  have  been  too  late,  for 
it  appeared  that  the  man's  madness  had  taken  on 
the  homicidal  tinge.  They  were  better  out  of  the 
world,  he  told  us,  as  we  carried  him  off  to  the  hos- 
pital. When  he  was  gone,  the  children  came  upon 
the  alley,  and  loyally  did  it  stand  by  them  until  a 
job  was  found  for  the  mother  by  the  local  political 
boss.  He  got  her  appointed  scrub-woman  at  the 
City  Hall,  and  the  alley,  always  faithful,  was  solid 
for  him  ever  after.  Organized  charity  might,  and 
indeed  did,  provide  groceries  on  the  instalment 
plan.  The  Tammany  captain  provided  the  means 
of  pulling  the  family  through  and  of  bringing  up 
the  children,  although  there  was  not  a  vote  in  the 
family.  It  was  not  the  first  time  I  had  met  him 
and  observed  his  plan  of  "  keeping  close "  to  the 
people.  Against  it  not  the  most  carping  reform 
critic  could  have  found  just  ground  of  complaint. 
The  charity  of  the  alley  was  contagious.  With 
the  reporters'  messenger  boys,  a  harum-scarum  lot, 
in  "  the  front,"  the  alley  was  not  on  good  terms  for 


324  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

any  long  stretch  at  a  time.  They  made  a  racket  at 
night,  and  had  sport  with  "  old  man  Quinn,"  who 
was  a  victim  of  dropsy.  He  was  "walking  on 
dough,"  they  asseverated,  and  paid  no  attention  to  the 
explanation  of  the  alley  that  he  had  "  kidney  feet." 
But  when  the  old  man  died  and  his  wife  was  left 
penniless,  I  found  some  of  them  secretly  contribut- 
ing to  her  keep.  It  was  not  so  long  after  that  that 
another  old  pensioner  of  the  alley,  suddenly  drawn 
into  their  cyclonic  sport  in  the  narrow  passageway, 
fell  and  broke  her  arm.  Apparently  no  one  in  the 
lot  was  individually  to  blame.  It  was  an  unfortu- 
nate accident,  and  it  deprived  her  of  her  poor  means 
of  earning  the  few  pennies  with  which  she  eked  out 
the  charity  of  the  alley.  Worse  than  that,  it  took 
from  her  hope  after  death,  as  it  were.  For  years 
she  had  pinched  and  saved  and  denied  herself  to 
keep  up  a  payment  of  twenty-five  cents  a  week 
which  insured  her  decent  burial  in  consecrated 
ground.  Now  that  she  could  no  longer  work,  the 
dreaded  trench  in  the  Potter's  Field  yawned  to 
receive  her.  That  was  the  blow  that  broke  her 
down.  She  was  put  out  by  the  landlord  soon  after 
the  accident,  as  a  hopeless  tenant,  and  I  thought 
that  she  had  gone  to  the  almshouse,  when  by  chance 
I  came  upon  her  living  quite  happily  in  a  tenement 
on  the  next  block.  "  Living  "  is  hardly  the  word  ; 
she  was  really  waiting  to  die,  but  waiting  with  a 


THE   PASSING   OF  CAT  ALLEY  325 

cheerful  content  that  amazed  me  until  she  herself 
betrayed  the  secret  of  it.  Every  week  one  of  the 
messenger  boys  brought  her  out  of  his  scanty  wages 
the  quarter  that  alike  insured  her  peace  of  mind  and 
the  undisturbed  rest  of  her  body  in  its  long  sleep, 
which  a  life  of  toil  had  pictured  to  her  as  the  great- 
est of  earth's  boons. 

Death  came  to  Cat  Alley  in  varying  forms,  often 
enough  as  a  welcome  relief  to  those  for  whom  it 
called,  rarely  without  its  dark  riddle  for  those  whom 
it  left  behind,  to  be  answered  without  delay  or  long 
guessing.  There  were  at  one  time  three  widows 
with  little  children  in  the  alley,  none  of  them  over 
twenty-five.  They  had  been  married  at  fifteen  or 
sixteen,  and  when  they  were  called  upon  to  face  the 
world  and  fight  its  battles  alone  were  yet  young 
and  inexperienced  girls  themselves.  Improvidence ! 
Yes.  Early  marriages  are  at  the  bottom  of  much 
mischief  among  the  poor.  And  yet  perhaps  these, 
and  others  like  them,  might  have  offered  the  homes 
from  which  they  went  out,  as  a  valid  defence.  To 
their  credit  be  it  said  that  they  accepted  their  lot 
bravely,  and,  with  the  help  of  the  alley,  pulled 
through.  Two  of  them  married  again,  and  made 
a  bad  job  of  it.  Second  marriages  seldom  turned 
out  well  in  the  alley.  They  were  a  refuge  of  the 
women  from  work  that  was  wearing  their  lives 
out,  and  gave  them  in  exchange  usually  a  tyrant  who 


326  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

hastened  the  process.  There  never  was  any  senti- 
ment about  it.  "  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do," 
said  one  of  the  widows  to  me,  when  at  last  it  was 
decreed  that  the  tenements  were  to  be  pulled  down, 
"  unless  I  can  find  a  man  to  take  care  of  me.  Might 
get  one  that  drinks  ?  I  would  hammer  him  half  to 
death."  She  did  find  her  "man,"  only  to  have  him 
on  her  hands  too.  It  was  the  last  straw.  Before 
the  wreckers  came  around  she  was  dead.  The 
amazed  indignation  of  the  alley  at  the  discovery  of 
her  second  marriage,  which  till  then  had  been  kept 
secret,  was  beyond  bounds.  The  supposed  widow's 
neighbor  across  the  hall,  whom  we  knew  in  the  front 
generally  as  "  the  Fat  One,"  was  so  stunned  by  the 
revelation  that  she  did  not  recover  in  season  to  go 
to  the  funeral.  She  was  never  afterward  the  same. 
In  the  good  old  days  when  the  world  was  right, 
the  Fat  One  had  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being 
the  one  tenant  in  Cat  Alley  whose  growler  never 
ran  dry.  It  made  no  difference  how  strictly  the 
Sunday  law  was  observed  toward  the  rest  of  the 
world,  the  Fat  One  would  set  out  from  the  alley  with 
her  growler  in  a  basket,  —  this  as  a  concession  to 
the  unnatural  prejudices  of  a  misguided  community, 
not  as  an  evasion,  for  she  made  a  point  of  showing 
it  to  the  policeman  on  the  corner,  —  and  return 
with  it  filled.  Her  look  of  scornful  triumph  as 
she  marched  through  the  alley,  and  the  backward 


The  Wrecking  of  Cat  Alley. 

By  pertttission  of  the  Century  Company. 


THE   PASSING   OF  CAT  ALLEY  329 

toss  of  her  head  toward  police  headquarters, 
which  said  plainly:  "Ha!  you  thought  you  could! 
But  you  didn't,  did  you  ?  "  were  the  admiration  of 
the  alley.  It  allowed  that  she  had  met  and  downed 
Roosevelt  in  a  fair  fight.  But  after  the  last  funeral 
the  Fat  One  never  again  carried  the  growler.  Her 
spirit  was  broken.  All  things  were  coming  to  an 
end,  the  alley  itself  with  them. 

One  funeral  I  recall  with  a  pleasure  which  the 
years  have  in  no  way  dimmed.  It  was  at  a  time 
before  the  King's  Daughters'  Tenement  House 
Committee  was  organized,  when  out-of-town  friends 
used  to  send  flowers  to  my  office  for  the  poor.  The 
first  notice  I  had  of  a  death  in  the  alley  was  when 
a  delegation  of  children  from  the  rear  knocked  and 
asked  for  daisies.  There  was  something  unnatu- 
rally solemn  about  them  that  prompted  me  to  make 
inquiries,  and  then  it  came  out  that  old  Mrs.  Walsh 
was  dead  and  going  on  her  long  ride  up  to  Hart's 
Island ;  for  she  was  quite  friendless,  and  the  purse- 
strings  of  the  alley  were  not  long  enough  to  save 
her  from  the  Potter's  Field.  The  city  hearse  was 
even  then  at  the  door,  and  they  were  carrying  in 
the  rough  pine  coffin.  With  the  children  the 
crippled  old  woman  had  been  a  favorite ;  she  had 
always  a  kind  word  for  them,  and  they  paid  her 
back  in  the  way  they  knew  she  would  have  loved 
best.     Not  even  the  coffin  of  the  police  sergeant 


330  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

who  was  a  brother  of  the  district  leader  was  so 
gloriously  decked  out  as  old  Mrs.  Walsh's  when 
she  started  on  .her  last  journey.  The  children 
stood  in  the  passageway  with  their  arms  full  of 
daisies,  and  gave  the  old  soul  a  departing  cheer; 
and  though  it  was  quite  irregular,  it  was  all  right, 
for  it  was  well  meant,  and  Cat  Alley  knew  it. 

They  were  much  like  other  children,  those  of  the 
alley.  It  was  only  in  their  later  years  that  the  alley 
and  the  growler  set  their  stamp  upon  them.  While 
they  were  small,  they  loved,  like  others  of  their 
kind,  to  play  in  the  gutter,  to  splash  in  the 
sink  about  the  hydrant,  and  to  dance  to  the  hand- 
organ  that  came  regularly  into  the  block,  even 
though  they  sadly  missed  the  monkey  that  was  its 
chief  attraction  till  the  aldermen  banished  it  in  a 
cranky  fit.  Dancing  came  naturally  to  them,  too ; 
certainly  no  one  took  the  trouble  to  teach  them.  It 
was  a  pretty  sight  to  see  them  stepping  to  the  time 
on  the  broad  flags  at  the  mouth  of  the  alley.  Not 
rarely  they  had  for  an  appreciative  audience  the 
big  chief  himself,  who  looked  down  from  his  win- 
dow, and  the  uniformed  policeman  at  the  door. 
Even  the  commissioners  deigned  to  smile  upon  the 
impromptu  show  in  breathing-spells  between  their 
heavy  labors  in  the  cause  of  politics  and  pull.  But 
the  children  took  little  notice  of  them ;  they  were 
too  happy  in  their  play.     They  loved  my  flowers, 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  331 

too,  with  a  genuine  love  that  did  not  spring  from 
the  desire  to  get  something  for  nothing,  and  the 
parades  on  Italian  feast-days  that  always  came 
through  the  street.  They  took  a  fearsome  delight 
in  watching  for  the  big  dime  museum  giant,  who 
lived  around  in  Elizabeth  Street,  and  who  in  his  last 
days  looked  quite  lean  and  hungry  enough  to  send 


Trilby. 
By  permission  of  the  Century  Company. 

a  thrill  to  any  little  boy's  heart,  though  he  had 
never  cooked  one  and  eaten  him  in  his  whole  life, 
being  quite  a  harmless  and  peaceable  giant.  And 
they  loved  Trilby. 

Trilby  was  the  dog.  As  far  back  as  my  memory 
reaches  there  was  never  another  in  Cat  Alley.  She 
arrived  in  the  block  one  winter  morning  on  a  dead 
run,  with  a  tin  can  tied  to  her  stump  of  a  tail,  and 


332  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

with  the  Mott  Street  gang  in  hot  pursuit.  In  her 
extremity  she  saw  the  mouth  of  the  alley,  dodged 
in,  and  was  safe.  The  Mott  Streeters  would  as  soon 
have  thought  of  following  her  into  police  head- 
quarters as  there.  Ever  after  she  stayed.  She 
took  possession  of  the  alley  and  of  headquarters, 
where  the  reporters  had  their  daily  walk,  as  if  they 
were  hers  by  right  of  conquest,  which  in  fact  they 
were.  With  her  whimsically  grave  countenance,  in 
which  all  the  cares  of  the  vast  domain  she  made  it 
her  daily  duty  to  oversee  were  visibly  reflected,  she 
made  herself  a  favorite  with  every  one  except  the 
"  beanery-man  "  on  the  corner,  who  denounced  her 
angrily,  when  none  of  her  friends  were  near,  for 
coming  in  with  his  customers  at  lunch-time  on  pur- 
pose to  have  them  feed  her  with  his  sugar,  which 
was  true.  At  regular  hours,  beginning  with  the  open- 
ing of  the  department  offices,  she  would  make  the 
round  of  the  police  building  and  call  on  all  the  offi- 
cials, forgetting  none.  She  rode  up  in  the  elevator 
and  left  it  at  the  proper  floors,  waited  in  the  ante- 
rooms with  the  rest  when  there  was  a  crowd,  and 
paid  stated  visits  to  the  chief  and  the  commission- 
ers, who  never  omitted  to  receive  her  with  a  nod 
and  a  "  Hello,  Trilby ! "  no  matter  how  pressing 
the  business  in  hand.  The  gravity  with  which 
she  listened  to  what  went  on,  and  wrinkled  up  her 
brow  in  an  evident  effort  to  understand,  was  comi- 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  333 

cal  to  the  last  degree.  She  knew  the  fire  alarm 
signals  and  when  anything  momentous  was  afoot. 
On  the  quiet  days,  when  nothing  was  stirring,  she 
would  flock  with  the  reporters  on  the  stoop  and 
sing. 

There  never  was  such  singing  as  Trilby's.  That 
was  how  she  got  her  name.  I  tried  a  score  of  times 
to  find  out,  but  to  this  day  I  do  not  know  whether 
it  was  pain  or  pleasure  that  was  in  her  note.  She 
had  only  one,  but  it  made  up  in  volume  for  what  it 
lacked  in  range.  Standing  in  the  circle  of  her 
friends,  she  would  raise  her  head  until  her  nose 
pointed  straight  toward  the  sky,  and  pour  forth  her 
melody  with  a  look  of  such  unutterable  woe  on  her 
face  that  peals  of  laughter  always  wound  up  the 
performance ;  whereupon  Trilby  would  march  off 
with  an  injured  air,  and  hide  herself  in  one  of  the 
offices,  refusing  to  come  out.  Poor  Trilby!  with 
the  passing  away  of  the  alley  she  seemed  to  lose 
her  grip.  She  did  not  understand  it.  After  wan- 
dering about  aimlessly  for  a  while,  vainly  seeking  a 
home  in  the  world,  she  finally  moved  over  on  the 
East  Side  with  one  of  the  dispossessed  tenants. 
But  on  all  Sundays  and  holidays,  and  once  in  a 
while  in  the  middle  of  the  week,  she  comes  yet  to 
inspect  the  old  block  in  Mulberry  Street  and  to  join 
in  a  quartette  with  old  friends. 

Trilby  and  Old  Barney  were  the  two  who  stuck 


334 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


to  the  alley  longest.  Barney  was  the  star  boarder. 
As  everything  about  the  place  was  misnamed,  the 
alley  itself  included,  so  was  he.  His  real  name  was 
Michael,  but  the  children  called  him   Barney,  and 


Old  Barney. 

the  name  stuck.  When  they  were  at  odds,  as  they 
usually  were,  they  shouted  "  Barney  Bluebeard ! " 
after  him,  and  ran  away  and  hid  in  trembling  de- 
light as  he  shook  his  key-ring  at  them,  and  showed 
his  teeth  with  the  evil  leer  which  he  reserved  spe- 
cially for  them.     It  was  reported  in  the  alley  that 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  335 

he  was  a  woman-hater;  hence  the  name.  Certain 
it  is  that  he  never  would  let  one  of  the  detested  sex 
cross  the  threshold  of  his  attic  room  on  any  pretext. 
If  he  caught  one  pointing  for  his  aerie,  he  would 
block  the  way  and  bid  her  sternly  begone.  She 
seldom  tarried  long,  for  Barney  was  not  a  pleasing 
object  when  he  was  in  an  ugly  mood.  As  the  years 
passed,  and  cobweb  and  dirt  accumulated  in  his 
room,  stories  were  told  of  fabulous  wealth  which  he 
had  concealed  in  the  chinks  of  the  wall  and  in 
broken  crocks ;  and  as  he  grew  constantly  shabbier 
and  more  crabbed,  they  were  readily  believed.  Bar- 
ney carried  his  ring  and  filed  keys  all  day,  coining 
money,  so  the  reasoning  ran,  and  spent  none ;  so  he 
must  be  hiding  it  away.  The  alley  hugged  itself  in 
the  joyful  sensation  that  it  had  a  miser  and  his 
hoard  in  the  cockloft.  Next  to  a  ghost,  for  which 
the  environment  was  too  matter-of-fact,  that  was  the 
thing  for  an  alley  to  have. 

Curiously  enough,  the  fact  that,  summer  and 
winter,  the  old  man  never  missed  early  mass  and 
always  put  a  silver  quarter  —  even  a  silver  dollar,  it 
was  breathlessly  whispered  in  the  alley  —  in  the 
contribution  box,  merely  served  to  strengthen  this 
belief.  The  fact  was,  I  suspect,  that  the  key-ring 
was  the  biggest  end  of  the  business  Old  Barney 
cultivated  so  assiduously.  There  were  keys  enough 
on  it,  and  they  rattled  most  persistently  as  he  sent 


336  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

forth  the  strange  whoop  which  no  one  ever  was 
able  to  make  out,  but  which  was  assumed  to  mean 
"  Keys !  keys ! "  But  he  was  far  too  feeble  and 
tremulous  to  wield  a  file  with  effect.  In  his 
younger  days  he  had  wielded  a  bayonet  in  his 
country's  defence.  On  the  rare  occasions  when 
he  could  be  made  to  talk,  he  would  tell,  with  a 
smouldering  gleam  in  his  sunken  eyes,  how  the 
Twenty-third  Illinois  Volunteers  had  battled  with 
the  Rebs  weary  nights  and  days  without  giving 
way  a  foot.  The  old  man's  bent  back  would 
straighten,  and  he  would  step  firmly  and  proudly, 
at  the  recollection  of  how  he  and  his  comrades 
earned  the  name  of  the  "  heroes  of  Lexington  "  in 
that  memorable  fight  But  only  for  the  moment. 
The  dark  looks  that  frightened  the  children  re- 
turned soon  to  his  face.  It  was  all  for  nothing, 
he  said.  While  he  was  fighting  at  the  front  he 
was  robbed.  His  lieutenant,  to  whom  he  gave 
his  money  to  send  home,  stole  it  and  ran  away. 
When  he  returned  after  three  years  there  was  noth- 
ing, nothing !  At  this  point  the  old  man  always 
became  incoherent.  He  spoke  of  money  the  gov- 
ernment owed  him  and  withheld.  It  was  impossi- 
ble to  make  out  whether  his  grievance  was  real  or 
imagined. 

When  Colonel  Grant  came  to  Mulberry  Street  as 
a  police  commissioner,  Barney  brightened  up  under 


THE   PASSING   OF  CAT   ALLEY  337 

a  sudden  idea.  He  might  get  justice  now.  Once 
a  week,  through  those  two  years,  he  washed  himself, 
to  the  mute  astonishment  of  the  alley,  and  brushed 
up  carefully,  to  go  across  and  call  on  "  the  general's 
son  "  in  order  to  lay  his  case  before  him.  But  he 
never  got  farther  than  the  Mulberry  Street  door. 
On  the  steps  he  was  regularly  awestruck,  and  the 
old  hero,  who  had  never  turned  his  back  to  the 
enemy,  faltered  and  retreated.  In  the  middle  of 
the  street  he  halted,  faced  front,  and  saluted  the 
building  with  all  the  solemnity  of  a  grenadier  on 
parade,  then  went  slowly  back  to  his  attic  and  to 
his  un righted  grievance. 

It  had  been  the  talk  of  the  neighborhood  for 
years  that  the  alley  would  have  to  go  in  the  Elm 
Street  widening  which  was  to  cut  a  swath  through 
the  block,  right  over  the  site  upon  which  it  stood ; 
and  at  last  notice  was  given  about  Christmas  time 
that  the  wreckers  were  coming.  The  alley  was 
sold, —  thirty  dollars  was  all  it  brought, — and  the 
old  tenants  moved  away,  and  were  scattered  to  the 
four  winds.  Barney  alone  stayed.  He  flatly  re- 
fused to  budge.  They  tore  down  the  church  next 
door  and  the  buildings  on  Houston  Street,  and  filled 
what  had  been  the  yard,  or  court,  of  the  tenements 
with  debris  that  reached  halfway  to  the  roof,  so 
that  the  old  locksmith,  if  he  wished  to  go  out  or  in, 
must  do  so  by  way  of  the  third-story  window,  over 


338  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

a  perilous  path  of  shaky  timbers  and  sliding  brick. 
He  evidently  considered  it  a  kind  of  siege,  and  shut 
himself  in  his  attic,  bolting  and  barring  the  door, 
and  making  secret  sorties  by  night  for  provisions. 
When  the  chimney  fell  down  or  was  blown  over,  he 
punched  a  hole  in  the  rear  wall  and  stuck  the  stove- 
pipe through  that,  where  it  blew  defiance  to  the 
new  houses  springing  up  almost  within  arm's-reach 
of  it.  It  suggested  guns  pointing  from  a  fort,  and 
perhaps  it  pleased  the  old  man's  soldier  fancy.  It 
certainly  made  smoke  enough  in  his  room,  where 
he  was  fighting  his  battles  over  with  himself,  and 
occasionally  with  the  janitor  from  the  front,  who 
climbed  over  the  pile  of  bricks  and  in  through  the 
window  to  bring  him  water.  When  I  visited  him 
there  one  day,  and,  after  giving  the  password,  got 
behind  the  bolted  door,  I  found  him,  the  room,  and 
everything  else  absolutely  covered  with  soot,  coal- 
black  from  roof  to  rafters.  The  password  was 
"  Letter !  "  yelled  out  loud  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs. 
That  would  always  bring  him  out,  in  the  belief  that 
the  government  had  finally  sent  him  the  long-due 
money.  Barney  was  stubbornly  defiant,  he  would 
stand  by  his  guns  to  the  end ;  but  he  was  weaken- 
ing physically  under  the  combined  effect  of  short 
rations  and  nightly  alarms.  It  was  clear  that  he 
could  not  stand  it  much  longer. 

The  wreckers  cut  it  short  one  morning  by  ripping 


THE   PASSING   OF   CAT   ALLEY  339 

off  the  roof  over  his  head  before  he  was  up.  Then, 
and  only  then,  did  he  retreat.  His  exit  was  charac- 
terized by  rather  more  haste  than  dignity.  There 
had  been  a  heavy  fall  of  snow  overnight,  and  Bar- 
ney slid  down  the  jagged  slope  from  his  window, 
dragging  his  trunk  with  him,  in  imminent  peril  of 
breaking  his  aged  bones.  That  day  he  disappeared 
from  Mulberry  Street.  I  thought  he  was  gone  for 
good,  and  through  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic 
had  set  inquiries  on  foot  to  find  what  had  become 
of  him,  when  one  day  I  saw  him  from  my  window, 
standing  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  key-ring 
in  hand,  and  looking  fixedly  at  what  had  once  been 
the  passageway  to  the  alley,  but  was  now  a  barred 
gap  between  the  houses,  leading  nowhere.  He 
stood  there  long,  gazing  sadly  at  the  gateway,  at  the 
children  dancing  to  the  Italian's  hand-organ,  at 
Trilby  trying  to  look  unconcerned  on  the  stoop, 
and  then  went  his  way  silently,  a  poor  castaway,  and 
I  saw  him  no  more. 

So  Cat  Alley,  with  all  that  belonged  to  it,  passed 
out  of  my  life.  It  had  its  faults,  but  it  can  at  least 
be  said  of  it,  in  extenuation,  that  it  was  very  human. 
With  them  all  it  had  a  rude  sense  of  justice  that  did 
not  distinguish  its  early  builders.  When  the  work 
of  tearing  down  had  begun,  I  watched,  one  day,  a 
troop  of  children  having  fun  with  a  see-saw  they 
had    made  of   a  plank   laid   across   a   lime    barrel. 


340  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

The  whole  Irish  contingent  rode  the  plank,  all  at 
once,  with  screams  of  delight.  A  ragged  little  girl 
from  the  despised  "  Dago "  colony  watched  them 
from  the  corner  with  hungry  eyes.  Big  Jane,  who 
was  the  leader  by  virtue  of  her  thirteen  years  and 
her  long  reach,  saw  her  and  stopped  the  show. 

"  Here,  Mame,"  she  said,  pushing  one  of  the 
smaller  girls  from  the  plank,  "  you  get  off  an'  let 
her  ride.     Her  mother  was  stabbed  yesterday." 

And  the  little  Dago  rode,  and  was  made  happy. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JUSTICE    TO    THE    BOY 

Sometimes,  when  I  see  my  little  boy  hugging 
himself  with  delight  at  the  near  prospect  of  the 
kindergarten,  I  go  back  in  memory  forty  years  and 
more  to  the  day  when  I  was  dragged,  a  howling 
captive,  to  school,  as  a  punishment  for  being  bad  at 
home.  I  remember,  as  though  it  were  yesterday, 
my  progress  up  the  street  in  the  vengeful  grasp  of 
an  exasperated  servant,  and  my  reception  by  the 
aged  monster  —  most  fitly  named  Madame  Bruin  — 
who  kept  the  school.  She  asked  no  questions,  but 
led  me  straightway  to  the  cellar,  where  she  plunged 
me  into  an  empty  barrel  and  put  the  lid  on  over  me. 
Applying  her  horn  goggles  to  the  bunghole,  to  my 
abject  terror,  she  informed  me,  in  a  sepulchral  voice, 
that  that  was  the  way  bad  boys  were  dealt  with  in 
school.  When  I  ceased  howling  from  sheer  fright, 
she  took  me  out  and  conducted  me  to  the  yard, 
where  a  big  hog  had  a  corner  to  itself.  She  bade 
me  observe  that  one  of  its  ears  had  been  slit  half  its 
length.  It  was  because  the  hog  was  lazy,  and  little 
boys  who  were  that  way  minded  —  zip !  she  clipped 

341 


342  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

a  pair  of  tailor's  shears  close  to  my  ear.  It  was  my 
first  lesson  in  school.     I  hated  it  from  that  hour. 

The  barrel  and  the  hog  were  never  part  of  the 
curriculum  in  any  American  boy's  school,  I  sup- 
pose ;  they  seem  too  freakish  to  be  credited  to  any 
but  the  demoniac  ingenuity  of  my  home  ogre.  But 
they  stood  for  a  comprehension  of  the  office  of 
school  and  teacher  which  was  not  patented  by  any 
day  or  land.  It  is  not  so  long  since  the  notion  yet 
prevailed  that  the  schools  were  principally  to  lock 
children  up  in  for  the  convenience  of  their  parents, 
that  we  should  have  entirely  forgotten  it.  Only  the 
other  day  a  clergyman  from  up  the  state  came  into 
my  office  to  tell  of  a  fine  reform  school  they  had  in 
his  town.     They  were  very  proud  of  it. 

"  And  how  about  the  schools  for  the  good  boys  in 
your  town  ? "  I  asked,  when  I  had  heard  him  out. 
"  Are  they  anything  to  be  proud  of  ^  " 

He  stared.  He  guessed  they  were  all  right,  he 
said,  after  some  hesitation.  But  it  was  clear  that 
he  did  not  know. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  forty  years  to  find 
us  in  the  metropolis  upon  the  clergyman's  platform, 
if  not  upon  Madame  Bruin's.  A  dozen  or  fifteen 
will  do.  They  will  bring  us  to  the  day  when  roof 
playgrounds  were  contemptuously  left  out  of  the 
estimates  for  an  East  Side  school,  as  "  frills  "  that 
had  nothing  to  do  with  education ;  when  the  Board 


The  New. 


344  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

of  Health  found  but  a  single  public  school  in  more 
than  sixscore  that  was  so  ventilated  as  to  keep  the 
children  from  being  poisoned  by  foul  air ;  when  the 
authority  of  the  Talmud  had  to  be  invoked  by 
the  Superintendent  of  School  Buildings  to  convince 
the  president  of  the  Board  of  Education,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  a  Jew,  that  seventy-five  or  eighty  pupils 
were  far  too  many  for  one  class-room ;  when  a  man 
who  had  been  dead  a  year  was  appointed  a  school 
trustee  of  the  Third  Ward,  under  the  mouldy  old 
law  surviving  from  the  day  when  New  York  was  a 
big  village,  and  filled  the  office  as  well  as  if  he  had 
been  alive,  because  there  were  no  schools  in  his 
ward  —  it  was  the  wholesale  grocery  district ;  when 
manual  training  and  the  kindergarten  were  yet  the 
fads  of  yesterday,  looked  at  askance ;  when  fifty 
thousand  children  roamed  the  streets  for  whom 
there  was  no  room  in  the  schools,  and  the  only 
defence  of  the  School  Commissioners  was  that  they 
"  didn't  know "  there  were  so  many ;  and  when  we 
mixed  truants  and  thieves  in  a  jail  with  entire  un- 
concern. Indeed,  the  jail  filled  the  title  role  in  the 
educational  cast  of  that  day.  Its  inmates  were  well 
lodged  and  cared  for,  while  the  sanitary  authorities 
twice  condemned  the  Essex  Market  school  across 
the  way  as  wholly  unfit  for  children  to  be  in,  but 
failed  to  catch  the  ear  of  the  politician  who  ran 
things  unhindered.     When  (in   1894)  I  denounced 


JUSTICE  TO   THE   BOY  345 

the  "  system  "  of  enforcing  —  or  not  enforcing  —  the 
compulsory  education  law  as  a  device  to  make 
thieves  out  of  our  children  by  turning  over  their 
training  to  the  street,  he  protested  angrily ;  but  the 
experts  of  the  Tenement  House  Commission  found 
the  charge  fully  borne  out  by  the  facts.  They  were 
certainly  plain  enough  in  the  sight  of  us  all,  had  we 
chosen  to  see. 

When  at  last  we  saw,  we  gave  the  politician  a 
vacation  for  a  season.  To  say  that  he  was  to  blame 
for  all  the  mischief  would  not  be  fair.  We  were  to 
blame  for  leaving  him  in  possession.  He  was  only 
a  link  in  the  chain  which  our  indifference  had 
forged;  but  he  was  always  and  everywhere  an 
obstruction  to  betterment,  —  sometimes,  illogically, 
in  spite  of  himself.  Successive  Tammany  mayors 
had  taken  a  stand  for  the  public  schools  when  it 
was  clear  that  reform  could  not  be  delayed  much 
longer;  but  they  were  helpless  against  a  system 
of  selfishness  and  stupidity  of  which  they  were  the 
creatures,  though  they  posed  as  its  masters.  They 
had  to  go  with  it  as  unfit,  and  upon  the  wave  that 
swept  out  the  last  of  the  rubbish  came  reform.  The 
Committee  of  Seventy  took  hold,  the  Good  Govern- 
ment Clubs,  the  Tenement  House  Commission,  and 
the  women  of  New  York.  Five  years  we  strove 
with  the  powers  of  darkness,  and  look  now  at  the 
change !     The  New  York  school  system  is  not  yet 


346  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

the  ideal  one,  —  it  may  never  be ;  but  the  jail,  at 
least,  has  been  cast  out  of  the  firm.  We  have  a 
compulsory  education  law  under  which  it  is  possible 
to  punish  the  parent  for  the  boy's  truancy,  as  he 
ought  to  be  if  there  was  room  in  the  school  for  the 
lad,  and  he  let  him  drift.  And  the  day  cannot  be 
delayed  much  longer  now  when  every  child  shall 
find  the  latchstring  out  on  the  school  door.  We 
have  had  to  put  our  hands  deep  into  our  pockets  to 
get  so  far,  and  we  shall  have  to  put  them  in  deeper 
yet  a  long  way.  But  it  is  all  right.  We  are  begin- 
ning to  see  the  true  bearing  of  things.  Last  week 
the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportionment  appro- 
priated six  millions  of  dollars  for  new  schools  — 
exactly  what  the  battleship  Massachusetts  cost  all 
complete  with  guns  and  fittings,  so  they  told  me  on 
board.  Battleships  are  all  right  when  we  need 
them,  but  even  then  it  is  the  man  behind  the  gun 
who  tells,  and  that  means  the  schoolmaster.  The 
Board  of  Education  asked  for  sixteen  millions. 
They  will  get  the  other  ten  when  we  have  caught 
our  breath.  Since  the  beginning  of  1895  ^  we  have 
built  sixty-nine  new  public  schools  in  Manhattan 
and  the  Bronx,  at  a  cost  of  $12,038,764,  exclu- 
sive of  cost  of  sites,  furnishings,  heating,  lighting, 
and  ventilating  the  buildings,  which  would  add  two- 
thirds  at  least  of  that  amount,  making  it  a  round 

,     *  Up  to  June,  1902. 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY 


347 


twenty  millions  of  dollars.  And  every  one  of  the 
sixty-nine  has  its  playground,  which  will  by  and  by 
be  free  to  all  the  neighborhood.  The  idea  is  at  last 
working  through  that  the  schools  belong  to  the 
people,  and  are  primarily  for  the  children  and  their 
parents ;  not  mere  vehicles  of  ward  patronage,  or  for 
keeping  an  army  of  teachers  in  ofifice  and  pay. 


Public  School  No.  177,  Manhattan. 

The  silly  old  regime  is  dead.  The  ward  trustee 
is  gone  with  his  friend  the  alderman,  loudly  pro- 
claiming the  collapse  of  our  liberties  in  the  day 
that  saw  the  schools  taken  from  "  the  people's " 
control.  They  were  "the  people."  Experts  man- 
age our  children's  education,  which  was  supposed, 


348  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

in  the  old  plan,  to  be  the  only  thing  that  did  not 
require  any  training.  To  superintend  a  brickyard 
demanded  some  knowledge,  but  anybody  could  run 
the  public  schools.  It  cost  us  an  election  to  take 
that  step.  One  of  the  Tammany  district  leaders, 
who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  said  to  me 
after  it  was  all  over :  "  I  knew  we  would  win.  Your 
bringing  those  foreigners  here  did  the  business. 
Our  people  believe  in  home  rule.  We  kept  ac- 
count of  the  teachers  you  brought  from  out  of 
town,  and  who  spent  the  money  they  made  here 
out  of  town,  and  it  got  to  be  the  talk  among  the 
tenement  people  in  my  ward  that  their  daughters 
would  have  no  more  show  to  get  to  be  teachers. 
That  did  the  business.  We  figured  the  school  vote 
in  the  city  at  forty-two  thousand,  and  I  knew  we 
could  not  lose."  The  "foreigners  "  were  teachers 
from  Massachusetts  and  other  states,  who  had 
achieved  a  national  reputation  at  their  work. 

There  lies  upon  my  table  a  copy  of  the  minutes 
of  the  Board  of  Education  of  January  9,  1895,  in 
which  is  underscored  a  report  on  a  primary  school 
in  the  Bronx.  "  It  is  a  wooden  shanty,"  is  the 
inspector's  account,  "heated  by  stoves,  and  is  a 
regular  tinder  box ;  cellar  wet,  and  under  one 
classroom  only.  This  building  was  erected  in 
order,  I  believe,  to  determine  whether  or  not  there 
was  a  school  population    in   the   neighborhood   to 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  349 

warrant  the  purchase  of  property  to  erect  a  school 
on." 

That  was  the  way  then  of  taking  a  school  census, 
and  the  result  was  the  utter  failure  of  the  com- 
pulsory education  law  to  compel  anything.  To- 
day we  have  a  biennial  census,  ordained  by  law, 
which,  when  at  last  it  gets  into  the  hands  of  some 
one  who  can  count,^  will  tell  us  how  many  Jacob 
Beresheims  are  drifting  upon  the  shoals  of  the 
street.  And  we  have  a  truant  school  to  keep  them 
safe  in.  To  it,  says  the  law,  no  thief  shall  be  com- 
mitted. It  is  not  yet  five  years  since  the  burglar 
and  the  truant  —  which  latter,  having  been  refused 
admission  to  the  school  because  there  was  not  room 
for  him,  inconsequently  was  locked  up  for  contract- 
ing idle  ways  —  were  herded  in  the  Juvenile  Asy- 
lum, and  classified  there  in  squads  of  those  who 
were  four  feet,  four  feet  seven,  and  over  four  feet 
seven !  I  am  afraid  I  scandalized  some  good 
people  during  the  fight  for  decency  in  this  matter, 
by  insisting  that  it  ought  to  be  considered  a  good 
mark  for  Jacob  that  he  despised  such  schools  as 

^  After  two  attempts  that  were  not  shining  successes,  the  politicians 
at  Albany  and  New  York  calmly  dropped  the  matter,  and  for  four  years 
ignored  the  law.  The  Superintendent  of  Schools  is  at  this  writing 
(June,  1902)  preparing  to  have  the  police  take  the  child  census,  without 
which  it  is  hard  to  see  how  he  can  know  the  extent  of  the  problem  he 
is  wrestling  with.  Half-day  classes  are  a  fair  index  of  the  number  of 
those  anxious  to  get  in ;  but  they  tell  us  nothing  of  the  dangerous  class 
who  shun  the  schools. 


350  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

were  provided  for  him.  But  it  was  true.  Except 
for  the  risk  of  the  burglar,  the  jail  was  preferable 
by  far.  The  woman  into  whose  hands  the  manage- 
ment of  the  truant  school  fell,  made  out,  after  little 
more  than  a  year's  experience,  that  of  twenty-five 
hundred  so-called  incorrigibles,  the  barest  handful 
—  scarce  sixty  —  were  rightly  so  named,  and  even 
these  a  little  longer  and  tighter  grip  might  probably 
win  over.  For  such  a  farm  school  is  yet  to  be  pro- 
vided. The  rest  responded  promptly  to  an  appeal 
to  their  pride.  She  "made  it  a  personal  matter" 
with  each  of  them,  and  the  truant  vanished ;  the 
boy  was  restored.  The  burglar,  too,  made  it  a 
personal  matter  in  the  old  contact,  and  the  result 
was  two  burglars  for  one.  I  have  yet  to  find  any 
one  who  has  paid  attention  to  this  matter  and  is 
not  of  the  opinion  that  the  truant  school  strikes 
at  the  root  of  the  problem  of  juvenile  crime.  After 
thirty  years  of  close  acquaintance  with  the  child 
population  of  London,  Mr.  Andrew  Drew,  chair- 
man of  the  Industrial  Committee  of  the  School 
Board,  declared  his  conviction  that  "  truancy  is  to 
be  credited  with  nearly  the  whole  of  our  juvenile 
criminality."  But  for  years  there  seemed  to  be  no 
way  of  convincing  the  New  York  School  Board 
that  the  two  had  anything  to  do  with  one  another. 
Even  now  it  seems  to  be  a  case  of  one  convinced 
against  his  will  being  "  of  the  same  opinion  still," 


CO 


c/) 


JUSTICE  TO   THE   BOY  353 

for,  though  the  Superintendent  of  Schools  speaks 
of  that  bar  to  the  jail  as  preposterously  inadequate, 
nothing  is  done  to  strengthen  it. 

Nothing  on  that  tack.  But  there  is  a  long  leg 
and  a  short  leg  on  the  course,  and  I  fancy  Superin- 
tendent Snyder  does  the  tacking  on  the  long  leg. 
Mr.  Snyder  builds  New  York's  schools,  and  he 
does  that  which  no  other  architect  before  his  time 
ever  did  or  tried;  he  "builds  them  beautiful."  In 
him  New  York  has  one  of  those  rare  men  who 
open  windows  for  the  soul  of  their  time.  Literally, 
he  found  barracks  where  he  is  leaving  palaces  to  the 
people.  If  any  one  thinks  this  is  overmeasure  of 
praise,  let  him  look  at  the  "  Letter  H  "  school,  now 
become  a  type,  and  see  what  he  thinks  of  it.  The 
idea  suggested  itself  to  him  as  meeting  the  demands 
of  a  site  in  the  middle  of  a  block,  while  he  was  pok- 
ing about  old  Paris  on  a  much-needed  vacation,  and 
now  it  stands  embodied  in  a  dozen  beautiful  schools 
on  Manhattan  Island,  copies,  every  one,  of  the  hand- 
somest of  French  palaces,  the  Hotel  de  Cluny. 
I  cannot  see  how  it  is  possible  to  come  nearer  per- 
fection in  the  building  of  a  public  school.  There 
is  not  a  dark  corner  in  the  whole  structure,  from  the 
splendid  gymnasium  under  the  red-tiled  roof  to  the 
indoor  playground  on  the  street  floor,  which,  when 
thrown  into  one  with  the  two  yards  that  lie  enclosed 
in  the  arms  of  the  H,  give  the  children  nearly  an 


354  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

acre  of  asphalted  floor  to  romp  on  from  street  to 
street ;  for  the  building  sets  right  through  the  block, 
with  just  such  a  front  on  the  other  street  as  it  shows 
on  this  one.  If  there  be  those  yet  upon  whom  the 
notion  grates  that  play  and  the  looks  of  the  school 
should  be  counted  in  as  educational  factors,  why, 
let  them  hurry  up  and  catch  on.  They  are  way 
behind.  The  play  through  which  the  child  "first 
perceives  moral  relations "  comes  near  being  the 
biggest  and  strongest  factor  in  it  all  to-day ;  and  as 
for  the  five  or  ten  thousand  dollars  put  in  for  "  the 
looks  "  of  things  where  the  slum  had  trodden  every 
ideal  and  every  atom  of  beauty  into  the  dirt,  I  ex- 
pect to  live  to  see  that  prove  the  best  investment  a 
city  ever  made. 

We  are  getting  the  interest  now  in  the  new  pride 
of  the  boy  in  "  his  school,"  and  no  wonder.  When 
I  think  of  the  old  Allen  Street  school,  with  its  hard 
and  ugly  lines,  where  the  gas  had  to  be  kept  burn- 
ing even  on  the  brightest  days,  recitations  sus- 
pended every  half-hour,  and  the  children  made  to 
practice  calisthenics  so  that  they  should  not  catch 
cold  while  the  windows  were  opened  to  let  in  fresh 
air;  of  the  dark  playground  downstairs,  with  the 
rats  keeping  up  such  a  racket  that  one  could  hardly 
hear  himself  speak  at  times ;  or  of  that  other  East 
Side  "  playground "  where  the  boys  "  weren't  al- 
lowed to  speak  above  a  whisper,"  so  as  not  to  dis- 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  355 

turb  those  studying  overhead,  I  fancy  that  I  can 
make  out  both  the  cause  and  the  cure  of  the  boy's 
desperation.  "  We  try  to  make  our  schools  pleas- 
ant enough  to  hold  the  children,"  wrote  the  Super- 
intendent of  Schools  in  Indianapolis  to  me  once, 
and  added  that  they  had  no  truant  problem  worth 
bothering  about.  With  the  kindergarten  and  man- 
ual training  firmly  ingrafted  upon  the  school  course, 
as  they  are  at  last,  and  with  it  reaching  out  to  enlist 
also  the  boy's  play  through  playground  and  vacation 
schools,  I  shall  be  willing  to  turn  the  boy  who  will 
not  come  in  over  to  the  reformatory.  They  will 
not  need  to  build  a  new  wing  to  the  jail  for  his  safe- 
keeping. 

All  ways  lead  to  Rome.  The  reform  in  school 
building  dates  back,  as  does  every  other  reform  in 
New  York,  to  the  Mulberry  Bend.  It  began  there. 
The  first  school  that  departed  from  the  soulless  old 
tradition,  to  set  beautiful  pictures  before  the  child's 
mind  as  well  as  dry  figures  on  the  slate,  was  built 
there.  At  the  time  I  wanted  it  to  stand  in  the 
park,  hoping  so  to  hasten  the  laying  out  of  that; 
but  although  the  Small  Parks  law  expressly  per- 
mitted the  erection  on  park  property  of  buildings 
for  "  the  instruction  of  the  people,"  the  officials  upon 
whom  I  pressed  my  scheme  could  not  be  made  to 
understand  that  as  including  schools.  Perhaps  they 
were  right.     I  catechised  thirty-one  Fourth  Ward 


356 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


girls  in  a  sewing  school,  about,  that  time,  twenty-six 
of  whom  had  attended  the  public  schools  of  the  dis- 
trict more  than  a  year.  One  wore  a  badge  earned 
for  excellence  in  her  studies.  In  those  days  every 
street  corner  was  placarded  with  big  posters  of 
Napoleon  on  a  white  horse  riding  through  fire  and 


Public  School  No.   153,  the  Bronx. 

smoke.  There  was  one  right  across  the  street. 
Yet  only  one  of  the  thirty-one  knew  who  Napoleon 
was.  She  "  thought  she  had  heard  of  the  gentleman 
before."  It  came  out  that  the  one  impression  she 
retained  of  what  she  had  heard  was  that  "  the  gen- 
tleman "  had  two  wives,  both  at  one  time  probably. 
They  knew  of  Washington  that  he  was  the  first 


JUSTICE   TO  THE   BOY  357 

President  of  the  United  States,  and  cut  down  a 
cherry  tree.  They  were  sitting  and  sewing  at  the 
time  almost  on  the  identical  spot  on  Cherry  Hill 
where  he  lived  when  he  held  the  office.  To  the 
question  who  ruled  before  Washington  the  answer 
came  promptly:  no  one;  he  was  the  first.  They 
agreed  reluctantly,  upon  further  consideration,  that 
there  was  probably  "  a  king  of  America  "  before  his 
day,  and  the  Irish  damsels  turned  up  their  noses  at 
the  idea.  The  people  of  Canada,  they  thought,  were 
copper-colored.  The  same  winter  I  was  indignantly 
bidden  to  depart  from  a  school  in  the  Fourth  Ward 
by  a  trustee  who  had  heard  that  I  had  written  a 
book  about  the  slum  and  spoken  of  "  his  people  " 
in  it. 

Those  early  steps  in  the  reform  path  stumbled 
sadly  over  obstacles  that  showed  what  a  hard  pull 
we  had  ahead.  I  told  in  "  The  Making  of  an 
American "  how  I  fared  when  I  complained  that 
the  Allen  Street  school  was  overrun  with  rats, 
and  how  I  went  out  to  catch  one  of  them  to  prove 
to  the  City  Hall  folk  that  I  was  not  a  liar,  as  they 
said.  We  won  the  fight  for  the  medical  inspection 
of  the  schools  that  has  proved  such  a  boon,  against 
much  opposition  within  the  profession,  from  which 
we  should  have  had  only  support.  And  this  in  face 
of  evidence  of  a  kind  to  convince  anybody.  I  re- 
member one  of  the  exhibits.     There  had  been  a 


358  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

scarlet-fever  epidemic  on  the  lower  West  Side, 
which  the  health  inspectors  finally  traced  to  the 
public  school  of  the  district.  A  boy  with  the  dis- 
ease had  been  turned  loose  before  the  "  peeling " 
was  over,  and  had  achieved  phenomenal  popularity 
in  the  classroom  by  a  trick  he  had  of  pulling  the 
skin  from  his  fingers  as  one  would  skin  a  cat.  The 
pieces  he  distributed  as  souvenirs  among  his  com- 
rades, who  carried  them  proudly  home  to  show  to 
their  admiring  playmates  who  were  not  so  lucky  as 
to  sit  on  the  bench  with  the  clever  lad.  The  epi- 
demic followed  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  though 
the  Health  Department  put  through  that  reform, 
when  it  came  to  inspecting  the  eyes  of  the  children, 
we  lost.  The  cry  that  it  would  "  interfere  with 
private  practice  "  defeated  us.  The  fact  was  easily 
demonstrated  that  not  only  was  ophthalmia  rampant 
in  the  schools  with  its  contagion,  but  that  the  pupils 
were  made  both  near-sighted  and  stupid  by  the  want 
of  proper  arrangement  of  their  seats  and  of  them- 
selves in  their  classrooms.  But  self-interest  prevailed. 
However,  nothing  is  ever  settled  till  it  is  settled 
right.  I  have  before  me  the  results  of  an  examina- 
tion of  thirty-six  public  schools  containing  55,470  pu- 
pils. It  was  made  by  order  of  the  Board  of  Health 
this  month  (August,  1902),  and  ought  to  settle  that 
matter  for  good.  Of  the  55,470,  not  less  than 
6670  had  contagious  eye-disease ;  2328  were  cases  of 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  359 

operative  trachoma,  3243  simple  trachoma,  and  1099 
conjunctivitis.  In  one  school  in  the  most  crowded 
district  of  the  East  Side  22.2  per  cent  were  so 
afflicted.  No  wonder  the  doctors  "  were  horrified  " 
at  the  showing.  So  was  the  President  of  the  Board 
of  Health,  who  told  me  to-day  that  he  would  leave 
no  stone  unturned  until  effective  inspection  of  the 
school  children  by  eye-specialists  had  been  assured. 
So  we  go,  step  by  step,  ever  forward. 

Speaking  of  that  reminds  me  of  a  mishap  I  had 
in  the  Hester  Street  school, — the  one  with  the 
"  frills  "  which  the  Board  of  Education  cut  off.  I 
happened  to  pass  it  after  school  hours,  and  went  in 
to  see  what  sort  of  a  playground  the  roof  would 
have  made.  I  met  no  one  on  the  way,  and,  finding 
the  scuttle  open,  climbed  out  and  up  the  slant  of 
the  roof  to  the  peak,  where  I  sat  musing  over  our 
lost  chance,  when  the  janitor  came  to  close  up.  He 
must  have  thought  I  was  a  crazy  man,  and  my 
explanation  did  not  make  it  any  better.  He  haled 
me  down,  and  but  for  the  fortunate  chance  that  the 
policeman  on  the  beat  knew  me,  I  should  have  been 
taken  to  the  lockup  as  a  dangerous  lunatic  —  all  for 
dreaming  of  a  playground  on  the  roof  of  a  school- 
house. 

Janitor  and  Board  of  Commissioners  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding,  the  dream  became  real. 
There  stands  another  school  in  Hester  Street  to- 


36o 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


day  within  easy  call,  that  has  a  roof  playground 
where  two  thousand  children  dance  under  the  har- 
vest moon  to  the  music  of  a  brass  band,  as  I  shall 
tell  you  about  hereafter  —  the  joy  of  it  to  have  that 
story  to  tell !  —  and  all  about  are  others  like  it,  with 


fi 

S 

^ 

^ 

1 

k 

~ 

Girls'  Playground  on  the  Roof. 


more  coming  every  year.  To  the  indignant  amaze- 
ment of  my  captor,  the  janitor,  his  school  has 
been  thrown  open  to  the  children  in  the  summer 
vacation,  and  in  the  winter  they  put  a  boys'  club  in 
to  worry  him.  What  further  indignities  there  are 
in  store  for  him,  in  this  day  of  "frills,"  there  is 
no  telling.     The  Superintendent  of  Schools  told  me 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  361 

only  yesterday  that  he  was  going  to  Boston  to  look 
into  new  sources  of  worriment  they  have  invented 
there.  The  world  does  move  in  spite  of  janitors. 
In  two  short  years  our  school  authorities  advanced 
from  the  cautious  proposition  that  it  "was  the 
sense "  of  the  Board  of  Superintendents  that  the 
schoolhouses  might  well  be  used  in  the  cause  of 
education  as  neighborhood  centres,  etc.,  (1897),  to 
the  flat  declaration  that  "  every  rational  system  of 
education  should  make  provisions  for  play"  (1899). 
And  to  cut  off  all  chance  of  relapse  into  the  old 
doubt  whether  "such  things  are  educational,"  that 
laid  so  many  of  our  hopes  on  the  dusty  shelf  of  the 
circumlocution  office,  the  state  legislature  has  ex- 
pressly declared  that  the  commonwealth  will  take 
the  chance,  which  Boards  of  Education  shunned, 
of  a  little  amusement  creeping  in.  The  schools 
may  be  used  for  "  purposes  of  recreation."  To  the 
janitor  it  must  seem  that  the  end  of  all  things  is  at 
hand. 

So  the  schools  and  their  playgrounds  were  thrown 
open  to  the  children  during  the  long  vacation,  with 
kindergarten  teachers  to  amuse  them,  and  vacation 
schools  tempted  the  little  ones  from  the  street  into 
the  cool  shade  of  the  classrooms.  They  wrought 
in  wood  and  iron,  they  sang  and  they  played  and 
studied  nature,  —  out  of  a  barrel,  to  be  sure,  that 
came  twice  a  week  from  Long  Island  filled  with 


362  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

"specimens";  but  later  on  we  took  a  hint  from  Chi- 
cago, and  let  the  children  gather  their  own  specimens 
on  excursions  around  the  bay  and  suburbs  of  the  city. 
That  was  a  tremendous  success.  And  there  is  better 
still  coming,  as  I  shall  show  presently.  It  sometimes 
seems  to  me  as  if  we  were  here  face  to  face  with  the 
very  thing  we  are  seeking  and  know  not  how  to  find. 
The  mere  hint  that  money  might  be  lacking  to  pay 
for  the  excursions  set  the  St.  Andrew's  Brotherhood 
men  on  Long  Island  to  devising  schemes  for  in- 
viting the  school  children  out  on  trolley  and  shore 
trips.  What  if  they  all,  the  Christian  Endeavor, 
the  Epworth  League,  and  the  other  expressions  of 
the  same  human  desire  to  find  the  lost  brother,  who 
are  looking  about  for  something  to  try  their  young 
strength  and  enthusiasm  on  —  what  if  they  were 
to  hitch  on  here  and  help  pull  the  load  that  may 
get  mired  else.?  They  need  men  and  women  in 
that  work.  Mere  paid  teaching  will  never  do  it. 
If  they  can  only  get  them,  I  think  we  may  be 
standing  upon  the  threshold  of  something  which 
shall  bring  us  nearer  to  a  universal  brotherhood 
than  all  the  consecration  and  all  the  badges  yet 
devised.  I  am  thinking  of  the  children  and  of  the 
chance  to  take  them  at  once  out  of  the  slum  and 
into  our  hearts,  while  making  of  the  public  school 
the  door  to  a  house  of  citizenship  in  which  we 
shall  all  dwell  together  in  full  understanding.     With- 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY 


363 


The  New  Idea:  a  Stairway  of  Public  School  No.  170. 

out  that  door  the  house  will  never  be  what  we 
planned.  And  there  is  the  key,  all  ready-made,  in 
the  children. 

The  mere  contact  with  nature,  even  out  of  a 
barrel,  brought  something  to  those  starved  child 
lives  that  struck  a  new  note.  Sometimes  it  rang 
with  a  sharp  and  jarring  sound.  The  boys  in  the 
Hester  Street  school  could  not  be  made  to  take  an 
interest  in  the  lesson  on  wheat  until  the  teacher 
came  to  the  effect  of  drought  and  a  bad  year  on 
the  farmer's  pocket.  Then  they  understood.  They 
knew  the  process.  Strikes  cut  into  the  earnings 
of  Hester  Street,  small  enough  at  the  best  of  times, 


I 


364  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

at  frequent  intervals,  and  the  boys  need  not  be 
told  what  a  bad  year  means.  No  other  kind  ever 
occurs  there.  They  learned  the  lesson  on  wheat 
in  no  time,  after  that.  Oftener  it  was  a  gentler 
note  that  piped  timidly  in  the  strange  place.  A 
barrel  of  wild  roses  came  one  day,  instead  of  the 
expected  "  specimens,"  and  these  were  given  to 
the  children.  They  took  them  greedily.  "  I 
wondered,"  said  the  teacher,  "if  it  was  more  love 
of  the  flower,  or  of  getting  something  for  nothing, 
no  matter  what."  But  even  if  it  were  largely  the 
latter,  there  was  still  the  rose.  Nothing  like  it 
had  come  that  way  before,  and  without  a  doubt  it 
taught  its  own  lesson.  The  Italian  child  might 
have  jumped  for  it  more  eagerly,  but  its  beauty  was 
not  wasted  in  Jew-town,  either.  The  baby  kissed 
it,  and  it  lay  upon  more  than  one  wan  cheek,  and 
whispered,  who  knows  what  thought  of  hope  and 
courage  that  were  nearly  gone.  Even  in  Hester 
Street  the  wild  rose  from  the  hedge  was  not  wasted. 
The  result  of  it  all  was  w*holesome  and  good, 
because  it  was  common  sense.  The  way  to  fight 
the  slum  in  the  children's  lives  is  with  sunlight  and 
flowers  and  play,  which  their  child  hearts  crave, 
if  their  eyes  have  never  seen  them.  The  teachers 
reported  that  the  boys  were  easier  to  manage,  more 
quiet,  and  played  more  fairly  than  before.  The 
police  reports  showed  that  fewer  were  arrested   or 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  365 

run  over  in  the  streets  than  in  other  years.  A 
worse  enemy  was  attacked  than  the  trolley  car  or  the 
truck.  In  the  kindergarten  at  the  Hull  House  in 
Chicago  there  hangs  a  picture  of  a  harvest  scene, 
with  the  man  wiping  his  brow,  and  a  woman  resting 
at  his  feet.  Miss  Addams  told  me  that  a  little  girl 
with  an  old  face  picked  it  out  among  all  the  rest, 
and  considered  it  long  and  gravely.  "  Well,"  she 
said,  when  her  inspection  was  finished,  "  he  knocked 
her  down,  didn't  he  ? "  A  two  hours'  argument 
for  kindergartens  or  vacation  schools  could  not 
have  put  it  stronger  or  better. 

It  is  five  seasons  since  the  Board  of  Education 
took  over  the  work  begun  by  the  Association  for 
Improving  the  Condition  of  the  Poor  as  an  object 
lesson  for  us  all,  and  I  have  before  me  the 
schedule  for  this  summer's  work,  just  begun.  It 
embraces  seventeen  vacation  schools  in  which  the 
boys  are  taught  basketry,  weaving,  chair-caning, 
sloyd,  fret-sawing,  and  how  to  work  in  leather  and 
iron,  while  the  girls  learn  sewing,  millinery,  em- 
broidering, knitting,  and  the  domestic  arts,  besides 
sharing  in  the  boys'  work  where  they  can.  There 
are  thirty-five  school  playgrounds  with  kindergarten 
and  gymnasiums  and  games,  and  half  a  dozen  of 
the  play  piers  are  used  for  the  same  purpose.  In 
twelve  open-air  playgrounds  and  parks,  teachers 
sent  by  the  Board  of  Education  lead  the  children's 


366  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

play,  and  in  as  many  more  public  baths  teach  boys 
and  girls  to  swim  on  alternate  days.  In  Crotona 
Park,  up  in  the  Bronx,  under  big  spreading  oaks 
and  maples,  athletic  meets  are  held  of  boys  from 
down-town  and  up-town  schools  in  friendly  rivalry, 
and  the  Frog  Hollow  Gang,  that  wrecked  railroad 
trains  there  in  my  recollection,  is  a  bad  memory. 
Over  at  Hudsonbank  on  the  site  of  the  park  that 
is  coming  there,  teams  hired  by  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation are  ploughing  up  the  site  of  Stryker's  Lane, 
and  the  young  toughs  of  the  West  Side  who  held 
that  the  world  owed  them  a  living  and  collected 
it  as  they  could,  are  turning  truck  farmers.  They 
are  planting  potatoes,  and  gardening,  and  learning 
the  secret  of  life  that  the  living  is  his  who  can 
earn  it.  The  world  "do  move."  No  argument  is 
needed  now  to  persuade  those  who  hold  the  purse 
strings  that  all  this  is  "good  business."  Instead, 
the  mayor  of  the  city  is  asking  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion to  tell  him  of  more  and  better  ways  of  putting 
the  machinery  to  use.  The  city  will  foot  the  bill, 
if  we  will  show  them  how.  And  we  will  show  them 
how. 

The  last  four  years  have  set  us  fifty  years 
ahead,  and  there  is  no  doubling  on  that  track 
now.  Where  we  had  one  kindergarten  when  I  was 
put  out  of  the  Fourth  Ward  school  by  a  trustee  for 
daring  to  intrude  there  to  find  out  what  they  were 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY 


367 


teaching,  we  have  a  hundred  and  fifteen  at  this  writ- 
ing in  Manhattan  alone,  and  soon  we  shall  have  as 
many  as  five  hundred  that  are  part  of  the  public 
school  in  the  greater  city.  "The  greatest  blessing 
which  the  nineteenth  century  bequeathed  to  little 


• 

^^^^^^^^^B^^^^^^^^HI 

I. 

w'- 

i 

Truck  Farming  on  the  Site  of  Stryker's  Lane. 

children,"  Superintendent  Maxwell  calls  the  kinder- 
garten, and  since  the  children  are  our  own  to-mor- 
row, he  might  have  said  to  all  of  us,  to  the  state. 
The  kindergarten  touch  is  upon  the  whole  system 
of  teaching.  Cooking,  the  only  kind  of  temperance 
preaching  that  counts  for  anything  in  a  school 
course,  is  taught  in  the  girls'  classes.  A  minister 
of  justice  declared  in  the  Belgian  Chamber  that  the 


368  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

nation  was  reverting  to  a  new  form  of  barbarism, 
which  he  described  by  the  term  "alcohoHc  barba- 
rism," and  pointed  out  as  its  first  cause  the  "  insuffi- 
ciency of  the  food  procurable  by  the  working 
classes."  He  referred  to  the  quality,  not  the  quan- 
tity. The  United  States  experts,  who  lately  made 
a  study  of  the  living  habits  of  the  poor  in  New 
York,  spoke  of  it  as  a  common  observation  that  "  a 
not  inconsiderable  amount  of  the  prevalent  intem- 
perance can  be  traced  to  poor  food  and  unattractive 
home  tables."  The  toasting-fork  in  Jacob's  sister's 
hand  beats  preaching  in  the  campaign  against  the 
saloon,  just  as  the  boys'  club  beats  the  police  club 
in  fighting  the  gang. 

The  cram  and  the  jam  are  being  crowded  out  as 
common-sense  teaching  steps  in  and  takes  their 
place,  and  the  "  three  H's,"  the  head,  the  heart,  and 
the  hand,  —  a  whole  boy,  —  are  taking  the  place  too 
long  monopolized  by  the  "three  R's."  There  was 
need  of  it.  It  had  seemed  sometimes  as  if,  in  our 
anxiety  lest  he  should  not  get  enough,  we  were  in 
danger  of  stuffing  the  boy  to  the  point  of  making  a 
hopeless  dunce  of  him.  It  is  a  higher  function  of 
the  school  to  teach  principles  than  to  impart  facts 
merely.  Teaching  the  boy  municipal  politics  and  a 
thousand  other  things  to  make  a  good  citizen  of  him, 
instead  of  so  filling  him  with  love  of  his  country  and 
pride  in  its  traditions  that  he  is  bound  to  take  the 


JUSTICE   TO  THE   BOY  369 

right  stand  when  the  time  comes,  is  as  though  one 
were  to  attempt  to  put  all  the  law  of  the  state 
into  its  constitution  to  make  it  more  binding.  The 
result  would  be  hopeless  congestion  and  general 
uselessness. 

It  comes  down  to  the  teacher  in  the  end,  and 
there  are  ten  thousand  of  them  in  our  big  city/ 
To  them,  too,  a  day  of  deliverance  has  come.  Half 
the  machine  teaching,  the  wooden  output  of  our 
public  schools  in  the  past,  I  believe  was  due  to 
the  practical  isolation  of  the  teachers  between  the 
tyranny  of  politics  and  the  distrust  of  those  who 
had  good  cause  to  fear  the  politician  and  his  work. 
There  was  never  a  more  saddening  sight  than  that 
of  the  teachers  standing  together  in  an  almost  solid 
body  to  resist  reform  of  the  school  system  as  an 
attack  upon  them.  There  was  no  pretence  on  their 
part  that  the  schools  did  not  need  reform.  They 
knew  better.  They  fought  for  their  places.  Through- 
out the  fight  no  word  came  from  them  of  the  chil- 
dren's rights.  They  imagined  that  theirs  were  in 
danger,  and  they  had  no  thought  for  anything  else. 
We  gathered  then  the  ripe  fruit  of  politics,  and  it 
will  be  a  long  while,  I  suppose,  before  we  get  the 
taste  out  of  our  mouths.     But  the  grip  of  politics  on 

*  On  May  31,  1902,  there  were  10,036  class  teachers  in  elementary 
schools  in  the  Greater  New  York,  exclusive  of  principals  and  the  non- 
teaching  staffs,  and  of  the  high  school  teachers.  With  these,  the  total 
number  was  1 1,570,  with  a  register  of  445,964  pupils. 

2B 


370 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


our  schools  has  been  loosened,  if  not  shaken  off  al- 
together, and  the  teacher's  slavery  is  at  an  end,  if 
she  herself  so  wills  it.  Once  hardly  thought  worthy 
of  a  day  laborer's  hire,  she  ranks  to-day  with  a 
policeman  in  pay  and  privilege.     The  day  that  sees 


Doorway  of  Public  School  No.  165. 

her  welcomed  as  an  honored  guest  in  every  home 
with  a  child  in  school  will  break  the  last  of  her 
bonds,  and  do  more  for  the  schools  and  for  us  than 
anyone  thing  I  can  think  of.  Until  that  day  comes 
the  teachers,  as  a  class  apart,  will  have  interests 
apart,  or  feel  that  they  have,  and  will  be  bound  to 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  371 

stand  together  to  defend  them ;  and  they  will  work 
for  pay.  But  for  the  real  work  of  a  teacher  no  one 
can  ever  pay  her. 

The  day  is  coming.  The  windows  of  the  school- 
house  have  been  thrown  open,  and  life  let  in  with 
the  sunlight.  The  time  may  be  not  far  distant  when 
ours  shall  be  schools  "  for  discovering  aptitude,"  in 
Professor  Felix  Adler's  wise  plan.  The  problem 
is  a  vast  one,  even  in  its  bulk;  every  year  seats 
must  be  found  on  the  school  benches  for  twenty 
thousand  additional  children.  In  spite  of  all  we 
have  done,  there  are  to-day  in  the  greater  city  nearly 
thirty  thousand  children  in  half-day  or  part-time 
classes,  waiting  their  chance.  But  that  it  can  and 
will  be  solved  no  one  can  doubt.  We  have  just 
got  to,  that  is  all. 

In  the  solution  the  women  of  New  York  will 
have  had  no  mean  share.  In  the  struggle  for 
school  reform  they  struck  the  telling  blows,  and 
the  credit  of  the  victory  was  justly  theirs.  The 
Public  Education  Association,  originally  a  woman's 
auxiliary  to  Good  Government  Club  E,  has  worked 
as  energetically  with  the  school  authorities  in  the 
new  plan  as  it  fought  to  break  down  the  old  and 
secure  decency.  It  has  opened  many  windows  for 
little  souls  by  hanging  schoolrooms  with  beautiful 
casts  and  pictures,  and  forged  at  the  same  time 
new  and  strong  links  in  the  chain  that  bound  the 


372  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

boy  all  too  feebly  to  the  school.  At  a  time  when 
the  demand  of  the  boys  of  the  East  Side  for  club 
room,  which  was  in  itself  one  of  the  healthiest  signs 
of  the  day,  had  reached  an  exceedingly  dangerous 
pass,  the  Public  Education  Association  broke  ground 
that  will  yet  prove  the  most  fertile  field  of  all.  The 
Raines  law  saloon,  quick  to  discern  in  the  new  de- 
mand the  gap  that  would  divorce  it  by  and  by  from 
the  man,  attempted  to  bridge  it  by  inviting  the  boy 
in  under  its  roof.  Occasionally  the  girl  went  along. 
A  typical  instance  of  how  the  scheme  worked  was 
brought  to  my  attention  at  the  time  by  the  head 
worker  of  the  college  settlement.  The  back  room 
of  the  saloon  was  given  to  the  club  free  of  charge, 
with  the  understanding  that  the  boy  members 
should  "  treat."  As  a  means  of  raising  the  needed 
funds,  the  club  hit  upon  the  plan  of  fining  members 
ten  cents  when  they  "  got  funny." 

To  defeat  this  device  of  the  devil  some  way 
must  be  found ;  but  club  room  was  scarce  among 
the  tenements.  The  Good  Government  Clubs 
proposed  to  the  Board  of  Education  that  it  open 
the  empty  classrooms  at  night  for  the  children's 
use.  It  was  my  privilege  to  plead  their  cause 
before  the  School  Board,  and  to  obtain  from  it 
the  necessary  permission,  after  some  hesitation 
and  doubt  as  to  whether  "  it  was  educational. " 
The   Public    Education   Association   assumed   the 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  373 

responsibility  for  "the  property,"  and  the  Hester 
Street  school  was  opened.  The  property  was  not 
molested ;  only  one  window  was  broken  that  winter 
by  a  stray  ball,  and  that  was  promptly  paid  for 
by  those  who  broke  it.  But  the  boys  who  met 
there  under  Miss  Winifred  Buck's  management 
learned  many  a  lesson  of  self-control  and  practical 
wisdom  that  proved  "  educational "  in  the  highest 
degree.  Her  plan  is  simplicity  itself.  Through 
their  play, —  the  meeting  usually  begins  with  a 
romp, —  in  quarters  where  there  is  not  too  much 
elbow-room,  the  boys  learn  the  first  lesson  of 
respecting  one  another's  rights.  The  subsequent 
business  meeting  puts  them  upon  the  fundamentals 
of  civilized  society,  as  it  were.  Out  of  the  debate 
of  the  question.  Do  we  want  boys  who  swear, 
steal,  gamble,  and  smoke  cigarettes  ?  grow  convic- 
tions as  to  why  these  vices  are  wrong  that  put 
"  the  gang  "  in  its  proper  light.  Punishment  comes 
to  appear,  when  administered  by  the  boys  them- 
selves, a  natural  consequence  of  law-breaking,  in 
defence  of  society;  and  the  boy  is  won.  He  can 
thenceforward  be  trusted  to  work  out  his  own 
salvation.  If  he  does  it  occasionally  with  excessive 
unction,  remember  how  recent  was  his  conversion. 
''''Resolved,  that  wisdom  is  better  than  wealth, "  was 
rejected  as  a  topic  for  discussion  by  one  of  the 
clubs,  because  "  everybody  knows  it  is. "     This  was 


374  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

in  the  Tenth  Ward.  If  temptation  had  come  that 
way  in  the  shape  of  a  push-cart  with  pineapples 
—  we  are  all  human !  Anyway,  they  had  learned 
the  right. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  work  of  which  we 
shall,  I  hope,  hear  a  good  deal  more  hereafter.  It  is 
all  in  its  infancy  yet,  this  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  municipality  to  get  the  boys  off  the  street  and 
out  of  the  reach  of  the  saloon.  A  number  of 
schools  were  thrown  open,  where  the  crowds  were 
greatest,  for  evening  play  and  for  clubs,  and  some- 
times they  laid  hold  of  the  youngster  and  some- 
times not.  It  was  a  question  again  of  the  man 
or  the  woman  who  was  at  the  helm.  One  school 
I  found  that  surged  with  a  happy  crowd.  It  was 
over  at  Rivington  and  Suffolk  streets.  No.  i6o. 
Oh,  how  I  wish  they  would  soon  stop  this  hopeless 
numbering  of  our  schools,  and  call  them  after  our 
great  and  good  men,  as  Superintendent  Maxwell 
pleads,  so  that  "the  name  of  every  school  may  in 
itself  be  made  a  lesson  in  patriotism  and  good  citi- 
zenship to  its  pupils."  There  they  would  be  in 
their  right  place.  One  alderman  got  the  idea  dur- 
ing the  Strong  reform  administration,  but  they 
hitched  the  names  to  the  new  parks  instead  of  the 
schools,  and  that  turned  out  wrong.  So  they  have 
the  Ham  Fish  Park  for  Hamilton  Fish, the  "Sewer" 
Park  for  William  H.  Seward,  the  Thomas  Jefferson 


J 


JUSTICE  TO   THE   BOY 


375 


Park  up-town  which  no  one  will  ever  call  anything 
but  the  Little  Italy  Park,  and  the  good  name  of 
De  Witt  Clinton  put  to  the  bad  use  of  spoiling 
beautiful  "  Hudsonbank."  Only,  the  effort  will  be 
wasted.     The  old  name  will  stick.     How  different 


Main  Entrance  of  Public  School  No.  153. 

if  the  new  schools  had  been  called  after  these  states- 
men !  And  what  a  chance  to  get  their  pupils  inter- 
ested !  In  the "  Alexander  Hamilton  School,"  for 
instance,  where  "  the  Grange "  and  his  thirteen 
trees  abide  yet. 

But  that  is  another  story.     I  was  thinking  of  the 
Jackson  Pleasure  Club  of  boys  from  eleven  to  thir- 


376  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

teen  which  I  found  in  session  in  No.  i6o,  and  of 
its  very  instructive  constitution.  I  am  going  to 
print  it  here  entire  for  the  instruction  of  some  good 
people  who  don't  understand.  The  boys  got  it  all 
up  themselves  with  the  help  of  a  copy  of  the  United 
States  Constitution  and  the  famous  "  Stamp  Act." 

CONSTITUTION   OF  THE  JACKSON   PLEASURE   CLUB 

Evening  Recreation  Centre  P.  S.  No.  i6o,  New  York 

City 

We  the  boys  of  the  J.  P.  C.  in  order  to  form  a  perfect 
club,  we  establish  justice  insure  domestic  tranquillity  pro- 
vide for  the  common  defence.  We  promote  the  general 
welfare  and  secure  the  blessing  of  liberty  to  ourselves 
and  our  descendants  to  establish  the  Constitution  for 
the  J.  P.  C. 

No  boys  can  be  members  who  are  less  than  thirteen 
years  and  must  be  from  the  7th  Grammar  on. 

No  member  can  be  President  or  Vice  President  unless 
6  months  in  club. 

All  officers  will  keep  their  term  six  months. 

The  officers  can  not  commit  a  law  until  it  is  passed  by 
the  members.  If  it  is  an  important  one  it  will  be  passed 
by  votes.  By  this  I  mean  that  if  |  of  the  members  pass 
it  is  passed  if  ^  is  passed  it  is  not  passed. 

Several  committees  are  appointed  to  look  over  these 
rules  which  seldom  happen  on  the  streets. 

If  any  member  or  officer  is  seen  gambling,  smoking  or 
fighting  a  fine  of  $0.02  will  be  asked  and  must  be  paid  the 
next  meeting. 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  377 

Special  meetings  will  be  held  each  month.  Meetings 
will  be  held  at  8  o'clock  p.m.  to  9  p.m. 

No  secrets  or  slang  language  or  nicknames  allowed  or 
a  fine  of  $.03  is  asked. 

If  any  body  receites  a  recitation  and  makes  a  mistake 
he  is  not  to  be  laughed  at  or  a  fine  of  $.02  must  be  paid. 

If  any  member  takes  the  laws  into  his  own  hands  and 
interferes  with  the  president  or  any  other  officers  or  walks 
up  and  down  the  meeting  room  or  draws  pictures  on  the 
boards  a  fine  of  ;^.02  will  be  paid. 

Any  one  who  is  spoken  to  3  times  about  order  will  be 
put  out  for  that  meeting. 

Amendment  i.  No  member  will  be  allowed  to  go  on 
a  stranger's  roof,  or  a  fine  of  1^.03  will  be  asked. 

Why  not  on  a  stranger's  roof.?  Because  flying 
kites,  up  there  the  boys  run  across  and  interfere 
with  the  neighbor's  pigeons,  which  is  apt  to  make 
him  wroth.  So  you  see  it  is  all  in  the  interests  of 
"domestic  tranquillity  and  the  common  defence." 
They  are  not  meaningless  phrases,  those  big  words, 
they  are  the  boy's  ideas  of  self-government,  of  a 
real  democracy,  struggling  through  in  our  sight. 
And  suppose  he  does  walk  on  rhetorical  stilts,  he 
has  precedent  and  will  show  it  to  you.  A  nation 
learned  to  walk  on  them.  Who  shall  say  they  are 
not  good  enough  for  him } 

But  to  return  to  what  I  was  speaking  about :  with 
the  women  to  lead,  the  school  has  even  turned  the 
tables  on  the  jail  and  invaded  it  bodily.     For  now 


378  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE  SLUM 

nearly  five  years  the  Public  Education  Association 
has  kept  school  in  the  Tombs,  for  the  boys  locked 
up  their  awaiting  trial.  Of  thirty-one  pupils  on  this 
school  register,  when  I  examined  it  one  day,  twelve 
were  charged  with  burglary,  four  with  highway  rob- 
bery, and  three  with  murder.  That  was  the  gang 
run  to  earth  at  last.  Better  late  than  never.  The 
windows  of  their  prison  overlooked  the  spot  where 
the  gallows  used  to  stand  that  cut  short  many  a 
career  such  as  they  pursued.  They  were  soberly 
attentive  to  their  studies,  which  were  of  a  severely 
practical  turn.  Their  teacher,  Mr.  David  Willard, 
who  was  a  resident  of  the  university  settlement  in 
its  old  Delancey  Street  home  has  his  own  sound 
view  of  how  to  head  off  the  hangman.  Daily  and 
nightly  he  gathers  about  him,  in  the  house  on 
Chrystie  Street  where  he  makes  his  home,  half 
the  boys  and  girls  of  the  neighborhood,  whom  he 
meets  as  their  friend,  on  equal  terms.  Mr.  Willard, 
though  a  young  man,  is  one  of  the  most  unique  per- 
sonages in  the  city.  He  is  now  one  of  the  proba- 
tion officers,  under  the  new  law  which  seeks  to  save 
the  young  offender  rather  than  to  wreak  vengeance 
upon  him,  and  his  influence  for  good  is  great.  The 
house  in  Chrystie  Street  is  known  far  and  wide  as 
"the  Children's  House."  They  have  their  clubs 
there,  and  their  games,  of  which  Willard  is  the 
heart  and  soul.     "  I  never  saw  anything  remarkable 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  379 

in  him,"  said  one  of  his  old  college  professors  to 
me ;  "  if  anything,  he  was  rather  a  dull  student." 
It  seems,  then,  that  even  colleges  are  not  always 
institutions  for  "discovering  aptitude."  It  was  re- 
served for  Chrystie  Street  in  Willard's  case. 

Once  a  week  another  teacher  comes  to  the  Tombs 
school,  and  tells  the  boys  of  our  city's  history,  its 
famous  buildings  and  great  men,  trying  so  to 
arouse  their  interest  as  a  first  step  toward  a  citizen's 
pride.  This  one  also  is  sent  by  a  club  of  women, 
the  City  History  Club,  which  in  five  years  has  done 
strange  things  among  the  children.  It  sprang  from 
the  proposition  of  Mrs.  Robert  Abbe  that  the  man 
and  the  citizen  has  his  birth  in  the  boy,  and  that  to 
love  a  thing  one  must  know  it  first.  The  half-dozen 
classes  that  were  started  for  the  study  of  our  city's 
history  have  swelled  into  many  scores  of  times  that 
number,  with  a  small  army  of  pupils.  The  preg- 
nant fact  was  noted  early  by  the  teachers,  that  the 
immigrant  boy  easily  outstrips  in  interest  for  his 
adopted  home  the  native,  who  perchance  turns  up 
his  nose  at  him,  and  later  very  likely  complains  of 
the  "  unscrupulousness "  of  the  Jew,  who  forged 
ahead  of  him  in  business  as  well. 

The  classes  meet  in  settlement,  school,  or  church 
to  hear  about  the  deeds  of  the  fathers,  and,  when  they 
have  listened  and  read,  go  with  their  teachers  and  see 
for  themselves  the  church  where  Washington  wor- 


380  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

shipped,  the  graves  where  the  great  dead  lie,  the  fields 
where  they  fought  and  bled.  And  when  the  little 
Italian  asks,  with  shining  eyes,  "  Which  side  were  we 
on  ?  "  who  can  doubt  that  the  lesson  has  sunk  into  a 
heart  that  will  thenceforward  beat  more  loyally  for 
the  city  of  his  home  ?  We  have  not  any  too  much 
pride  in  our  city,  the  best  of  us,  and  that  is  why  we 
let  it  be  run  by  every  scalawag  boss  who  comes 
along  to  rob  us.  In  all  the  land  there  is  no  more 
historic  building  than  Fraunces'  Tavern,  where  Wash- 
ington bade  good-by  to  his  officers ;  but  though  the 
very  Chamber  of  Commerce  was  organized  there, 
the  appeal  of  patriotic  women  has  not  availed  to 
save  it  to  the  people  as  a  great  relic  of  the  past. 
The  last  time  I  was  in  it  a  waiter,  busy  with  a  lot 
of  'longshoremen  who  were  eating  their  lunch  and 
drinking  their  beer  in  the  "  Long  Room,"  had  hung 
his  dirty  apron  on  a  plaster  bust  of  the  Father  of  his 
Country  that  stood  upon  the  counter  about  where  he 
probably  sat  at  the  historic  feast.  My  angry  re- 
monstrance brought  only  an  uncomprehending  stare 
for  reply. 

But  in  spite  of  the  dullards,  the  new  life  I  spoke 
of,  the  new  sense  of  responsibility  of  our  citizenship, 
is  stirring.  The  People's  Institute  draws  nightly 
audiences  to  the  great  hall  of  the  Cooper  Institute 
for  the  discussion  of  present  problems  and  social 
topics  —  audiences  largely  made  up  of  workingmen 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  381 

more  or  less  connected  with  the  labor  movement. 
The  "  People's  Club,"  an  outgrowth  of  the  Institute, 
offers  a  home  for  the  lonely  wage-earner,  man  or 
woman,  and  more  accept  its  offer  every  year.  It 
has  now  nearly  four  hundred  members,  one  fourth 
of   them  women.     Every  night   its   rooms   at    241 


Superintendent  C.  B.  J.  Snyder,  who  builds  our  Beautiful  Schools 

East  Fourteenth  Street  are  filled.  Classes  for 
study  and  recreation  are  organized  right  along. 
The  People's  University  Extension  Society  invades 
the  home,  the  nursery,  the  kindergarten,  the  club, 
wherever  it  can,  with  help  and  counsel  to  mothers 
with  little  children,  to  young  men  and  to  old.     In 


382  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

a  hundred  ways  those  who  but  yesterday  neither 
knew  nor  cared  how  the  other  half  lived  are  reach- 
ing out  and  touching  the  people's  life.  The  social 
settlements  labor  unceasingly,  and  where  there  was 
one  a  dozen  years  ago  there  are  forty.  Down  on 
the  lower  East  Side,  the  Educational  Alliance  con- 
ducts from  the  Hebrew  Institute  an  energetic  cam- 
paign among  the  Jewish  immigrants  that  reaches 
many  thousands  of  souls,  two-thirds  of  them  children, 
every  day  in  the  week.  More  than  threescore  clubs 
hold  meetings  in  the  building  on  Saturday  and 
Sunday.  Under  the  same  roof  the  Baron  Hirsch 
Fund  teaches  the  children  of  refugee  Jews  the 
first  elements  of  American  citizenship,  love  for 
our  language  and  our  flag,  and  passes  them  on 
to  the  public  schools  within  six  months  of  their 
landing,  the  best  material  they  receive  from  any- 
where. 

So  the  boy  is  being  got  ready  for  dealing,  in  the 
years  that  are  to  come,  with  the  other  but  not  more 
difficult  problems  of  setting  his  house  to  rights, 
and  ridding  it  of  the  political  gang  which  now  mis- 
represents him  and  us.  And  justice  to  Jacob  is 
being  evolved.  Not  yet  without  obstruction  and 
dragging  of  feet.  The  excellent  home  library  plan 
that  proved  so  wholesome  in  the  poor  quarters  of 
Boston  has  only  lately  caught  on  in  New  York,  be- 
cause of  difficulty  in  securing  the  visitors  upon  whom 


JUSTICE   TO   THE   BOY  383 

the  plan  depends  for  its  success/  The  same  want 
has  kept  the  boys'  club  from  reaching  the  develop- 
ment that  would  apply  the  real  test  to  it  as  a  barrier 
against  the  slum.  There  are  fifteen  clubs  for  every 
Winifred  Buck  that  is  in  sight.  From  the  City 
History  Club,  the  Charity  Organization  Society, 
from  everywhere,  comes  the  same  complaint.  The 
hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  give  is  still  one's  self. 
But  it  is  all  the  time  getting  to  be  easier.  There 
are  daily  more  women  and  men  who,  thinking  of  the 
boy,  can  say,  and  do,  with  my  friend  of  the  college 
settlement,  when  an  opportunity  to  enter  a  larger 
field  was  offered  her,  "  No,  I  am  content  to  stay 
here,  to  be  ready  for  Johnnie  when  he  wants  me." 
Justice  for  the  boy,  and  for  his  father.     An  itin- 


^  The  managers  of  the  New  York  Public  Library  have  found  a  way, 
and  have  maintained  twenty-seven  -home  libraries  during  the  past  year 
(1901)  :  little  cases  of  from  fifteen  to  forty  books  entrusted  to  the  care 
of  some  family  in  the  tenement.  Miss  Adeline  E.  Brown,  who  is  in 
charge  of  the  work,  reports  a  growing  enthusiasm  for  it.  The  librarian 
calls  weekly.  "  We  come  very  near  to  the  needs  of  these  families,"  she 
writes,  "  the  visit  meaning  more  to  them  than  the  books.  In  nearly 
every  case  we  allow  the  books  to  be  given  out  at  any  time  by  the  child 
who  glories  in  the  honor  of  being  librarian.  In  one  wretched  tenement, 
on  the  far  East  Side,  we  are  told  that  the  case  of  books  is  taken  down 
into  the  yard  on  Sunday  afternoon,  and  neighbors  and  lodgers  have  the 
use  of  them."  It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the  biggest  of  the  home 
libraries  is  within  stone's  throw  of  Corlear's  Hook,  which  the  "  Hook 
Gang"  terrorized  with  rapine  and  murder  within  my  recollection. 

Miss  Brown  adds  that  "  the  girls  prefer  bookcases  with  doors  of 
glass,  as  they  like  to  scrub  it  with  sapolio,  but  the  boys  are  more  inter- 
ested in  the  lock  and  key." 


384  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

erant  Jewish  glazier,  crying  his  wares,  was  beckoned 
into  a  stable  by  the  foreman,  and  bidden  to  replace 
a  lot  of  broken  panes,  enough  nearly  to  exhaust  his 
stock.  When,  after  working  half  the  day,  he  asked 
for  his  pay,  he  was  driven  from  the  place  with  jeers 
and  vile  words.  Raging  and  impotent,  he  went 
back  to  his  poor  tenement,  cursing  a  world  in  which 
there  was  no  justice  for  a  poor  man.  If  he  had  next 
been  found  ranting  with  anarchists  against  the 
social  order,  would  you  have  blamed  him  ?  He 
found  instead,  in  the  Legal  Aid  Society,  a  cham- 
pi'on  that  pleaded  his  cause  and  compelled  the 
stableman  to  pay  him  his  wages.  For  a  hundred 
thousand  such  —  more  shame  to  us  —  this  society 
has  meant  all  that  freedom  promised :  justice  to  the 
poor  man.  It  too  has  earned  a  place  among  the 
forces  that  are  working  out  through  the  new  educa- 
tion the  brighter  day,  for  it  has  taught  the  lesson 
which  all  the  citizens  of  a  free  state  need  most  to 
learn  —  respect  for  law. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE    BAND    BEGINS    TO    PLAY 

"  Nothing  in  this  world  of  ours  is  settled  until 
it  is  settled  right."  From  the  moment  we  began 
the  fight  for  the  children's  play  there  was  but  one 
ending  to  that  battle ;  but  it  did  seem  sometimes  a 
long  way  off,  never  farther  than  when,  just  four 
months  ago,  the  particular  phase  of  it  that  had  seemed 
to  promise  most  was  officially  stamped  as  nonsense. 
The  playgrounds  on  top  of  the  big  schoolhouses, 
which  were  to  be  the  neighborhood  roof-gardens 
of  our  fond  imaginings,  were  "  of  little  use,"  said  the 
school  committee  that  had  them  in  charge.  The 
people  wouldn't  go  there.  So,  then,  let  them  be 
given  up.  And  a  school  commissioner  with  whom 
I  argued  the  case  on  the  way  home  responded  in- 
dulgently that  some  of  my  notions  "  were  regarded 
as  Utopian,"  however  sincerely  held. 

Let  me  see,  that  was  in  May.  The  resolution  I 
speak  of  had  passed  the  Committee  on  Care  of 
Buildings  on   April    i8.^     To-day   is   the    20th    of 

1  On  the  day  it  was  published  the  newspapers  reported  the  killing  in 
the  streets  of  three  children  by  trucks. 

2C  38s 


386  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

August,  and  I  have  just  come  home  from  an  even- 
ing spent  on  one  of  those  identical  school-roofs 
under  the  electric  lamps,  a  veritable  fairyland  of  de- 
light. The  music  and  the  song  and  laughter  of 
three  thousand  happy  children  ring  in  my  ears  yet. 
It  was  a  long,  laborious  journey  up  all  the  flights  of 
stairs  to  that  roof,  for  I  am  not  as  young  as  I  was 
and  sometimes  scant  of  breath ;  but  none  sweeter 
did  I  ever  take  save  the  one  under  the  wild-rose 
hedge  I  told  of  in  "  The  Making  of  an  American  " 
when  I  went  to  claim  my  bride.  Ah !  brethren, 
what  are  we  that  we  should  ever  give  up,  or  doubt 
the  justice  of  His  fight  who  bade  us  let  the  little 
ones  come  unto  Him  and  to  clear  the  briers  and 
thorns,  that  choked  the  path,  from  their  way  ? 

Seven  years  we  hacked  away  at  the  briers  in  that 
path.  It  is  so  long  since  the  state  made  it  law 
that  a  playground  should  go  with  every  public 
school,  five  since  as  secretary  of  the  Small  Parks 
Committee  I  pleaded  with  the  Board  of  Education 
to  give  the  roof  playground  to  the  neighborhood 
after  school  hours.  I  remember  that  the  question 
was  asked  who  would  keep  order,  and  the  answer, 
"  The  police  will  be  glad  to."  I  recalled  without 
trouble  the  time  when  they  had  to  establish  patrol 
posts  on  the  tenement  roofs  in  defence  against  the 
roughs  whom  the  street  had  trained  to  rebellion 
against  law  and  order.     But  I  was  a  police  reporter; 


THE   BAND   BEGINS   TO   PLAY  387 

they  were  not.  They  didn't  understand.  The  play- 
school came;  the  indoor  playgrounds  were  thrown 
open  evenings  under  the  pressure  they  brought  in 
their  train.  And  at  that  point  we  took  a  day  off, 
as  it  were,  to  congratulate  one  another  on  how  won- 
drous smart  and  progressive  we  had  been.  The 
machinery  we  had  started  we  let  be,  to  run  itself. 

It  ran  into  the  old  rut.  The  janitor  got  it  in  tow, 
and  presently  we  heard  from  the  "play  centres" 
that  "  the  children  didn't  avail  themselves  "  of  their 
privileges.  On  the  roof  playground  the  janitor  had 
turned  the  key.  The  Committee  on  Care  of  Build- 
ings spoke  his  mind:  "  They  were  of  little  use;  too 
hot  in  summer  and  too  cold  in  winter."  We  were 
invited  to  quit  our  fooling  and  resume  business  at 
the  old  stand  of  the  three  R's,  and  let  it  go  with 
that.  That  was  what  schools  were  for.  It  takes 
time,  you  see,  to  grow  an  idea,  as  to  grow  a  colt  or 
a  boy,  to  its  full  size. 

President  Burlingham,  who  in  his  day  drew  the 
bill  that  made  it  lawful  to  use  the  schools  for  neigh- 
borhood purposes  other  than  the  worship  of  those 
same  three  R's,  went  around  with  me  one  night  to 
see  what  ailed  the  children  who  would  not  play. 

In  the  Mulberry  Bend  school  the  janitor  had  care- 
fully removed  the  gymnastic  apparatus  the  boys  were 
aching  for,  and  substituted  four  tables,  around  which 
they  sat  playing  cards  under  the  eye  of  a  policeman. 


388  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

They  were  "educational"  cards,  with  pictures  of 
Europe  and  Asia  and  Africa  and  America  on,  but 
it  required  only  half  a  minute's  observation  to  tell 
us  that  they  were  gambling  —  betting  on  which 
educational  card  would  turn  up  next.  What  the 
city  had  provided  was  a  course  in  scientific  gambling 
with  the  policeman  to  see  that  it  was  done  right. 
And  over  at  Market  and  Monroe  streets,  where 
they  have  an  acre  or  more  of  splendid  asphalted 
floor  —  such  a  ball  room  !  —  and  a  matchless  yard, 
the  best  in  the  city,  twoscore  little  girls  were  piti- 
fully cooped  up  in  a  corner,  being  taught  some- 
thing, while  outside  a  hundred  clamored  to  get  in, 
making  periodic  rushes  at  the  door,  only  to  en- 
counter there  a  janitor's  assistant  with  a  big  club 
and  a  roar  like  a  bull  to  frighten  them  away. 
"  Orders,"  he  told  us.  The  yard  was  dark  and 
dismal.  That  was  the  school  by  the  way,  whence 
the  report  came  that  they  "hadn't  availed  them- 
selves "  of  the  opportunity  to  play. 

It  helped,  when  that  story  was  told.  There  is 
nothing  in  our  day  like  the  facts,  and  they  came  out 
that  time.  There  was  the  roof-garden  on  the  Educa- 
tional Alliance  Building  with  its  average  of  more  than 
five  thousand  a  day,  young  and  old,  last  summer 
(a  total  of  344,424  for  the  season),  in  flat  contradic- 
tion of  the  claim  that  the  children  "  wouldn't  go  up 
on  the  roof."     Not,  surely,  if  it  was  only  to  encoun- 


THE   BAND   BEGINS   TO   PLAY  389 

ter  a  janitor  with  a  club  there.  But  a  brass  band 
now  ?  There  were  a  few  professional  shivers  at  that, 
but  our  experience  with  the  one  we  set  playing  in 
the  park  on  Sunday,  years  ago,  came  to  the  rescue. 
When  it  had  played  its  last  piece  to  end  and  there 
burst  forth  as  with  one  voice  from  the  mighty 
throng,  "Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow!" 
some  doubts  were  set  at  rest  for  all  time.  They 
were  never  sensible,  but  after  that  they  were  silly. 

So  the  janitor  was  bidden  bring  out  his  key. 
Electric  lights  were  strung.  "  We  will  save  the 
money  somewhere  else,"  said  Mayor  Low.  The 
experiment  was  made  with  five  schools,  all  on 
the   crowded  East  Side. 

I  was  at  dinner  with  friends  at  the  University 
Settlement,  directly  across  from  which,  on  the  other 
corner,  is  one  of  the  great  new  schools,  No.  20,  I 
think.  We  had  got  to  the  salad  when  through  the 
open  window  there  came  a  yell  of  exultation  and 
triumph  that  made  me  fairly  jump  in  my  chair. 
Below  in  the  street  a  mighty  mob  of  children  and 
mothers  had  been  for  half  an  hour  besieging  the 
door  of  the  schoolhouse.  The  yell  signalized  the 
opening  of  it  by  the  policeman  in  charge.  Up 
the  stairs  surged  the  multitude.  We  could  see 
them  racing,  climbing,  toiling,  according  to  their 
years,  for  the  goal  above  where  the  band  was  tuning 
up.    One  little  fellow  with  a  trousers  leg  and  a  half, 


390  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

and  a  pair  of  suspenders  and  an  undershirt  as  his 
only  other  garments,  labored  up  the  long  flight, 
carrying  his  baby  brother  on  his  back.  I  watched 
them  go  clear  up,  catching  glimpses  of  them  at  every 
turn,  and  then  I  went  up  after. 

I  found  them  in  a  corner,  propped  against  the 
wall,  a  look  of  the  serenest  bliss  on  their  faces  as 
they  drank  it  all  in.  It  was  their  show  at  last. 
The  band  was  playing  "  Alabama,"  and  fifteen 
hundred  boys  and  girls  were  dancing,  hopping, 
prancing  to  the  tune,  circling  about  and  about 
while  they  sang  and  kept  time  to  the  music.  When 
the  chorus  was  reached,  every  voice  was  raised  to 
its  shrillest  pitch:  "Way  —  down  —  yonder  —  in  — 
the  —  cornfield."  And  for  once  in  my  life  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  fields  and  the  woods  did  not  seem 
hopelessly  out  of  place  in  the  Tenth  Ward  crowds. 
Baby  in  its  tired  mother's  lap  looked  on  wide-eyed, 
out  of  the  sweep  of  the  human  current. 

The  band  ceased  playing,  and  the  boys  took  up 
some  game,  dodging  hither  and  thither  in  pursuit 
of  a  ball.  How  they  did  it  will  ever  be  a  mystery 
to  me.  There  did  not  seem  to  be  room  for  another 
child,  but  they  managed  as  if  they  had  it  all  to 
themselves.  There  was  no  disorder;  no  one  was 
hurt,  or  even  knocked  down,  unless  in  the  game, 
and  that  was  the  game,  so  it  was  as  it  should  be. 
Right  in  the  middle  of  it,  the  strains  of  "  Sunday 


THE   BAND   BEGINS  TO   PLAY  391 

Afternoon,"  all  East  Side  children's  favorite,  burst 
forth,  and  out  of  the  seeming  confusion  came  rhyth- 
mic order  as  the  whole  body  of  children  moved, 
singing,  along  the  floor. 

Down  below,  the  deserted  street  —  deserted  for 
once  in  the  day  —  had  grown  strangely  still.  The 
policeman  nodded  contentedly:  "good  business,  in- 
deed." This  was  a  kind  of  roof  patrol  he  could 
appreciate.  Nothing  to  do ;  less  for  to-morrow,  for 
here  they  were  not  planning  raids  on  the  grocer's 
stock.  They  were  happy,  and  when  children  are 
happy,  they  are  safe,  and  so  are  the  rest  of  us.  It  is 
the  policeman's  philosophy,  and  it  is  worth  taking 
serious  note  of. 

A  warning  blast  on  a  trumpet  and  the  "Star- 
spangled  Banner"  floated  out  over  the  house-tops. 
The  children  ceased  dancing;  every  boy's  cap 
came  off,  and  the  chorus  swelled  loud  and  clear: 

"  —  in  triumph  shall  wave 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave." 

The  light  shone  upon  the  thousand  upturned  faces. 
Scarce  one  in  a  hundred  of  them  all  that  did  not  bear 
silent  witness  to  persecution  which  had  driven  a 
whole  people  over  the  sea,  without  home,  without 
flag.  And  now  —  my  eyes  filled  with  tears.  I  said 
it :   I  am  getting  old  and  silly. 

It  was  so  at  the  still  bigger  school  at  Hester  and 


392 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


Orchard  streets.  At  the  biggest  of  them  all,  and 
the  finest,  the  same  No.  177  where  the  janitor's 
assistant  "  shooed  "  the  children  away  with  his  club, 
the  once  dismal  yard  had  been  festooned  with  elec- 
tric lamps  that  turned  night  into  day,  and  about  the 
band-stand  danced  nearly  three  thousand  boys  and 
girls  to  the  strains  of  "Money  Musk,"  glad  to  be  alive 
and  there.  A  ball-room  forsooth !  And  it  is  going 
to  be  better  still ;  for  once  the  ice  has  been  broken, 
there  are  new  kinks  coming  in  this  dancing  pro- 
gramme that  is  the  dear  dissipation  of  the  East  Side. 
What  is  to  hinder  the  girls,  when  the  long  winter 
days  come,  from  inviting  in  the  fellows,  and  papa 


The  Fellows  and  Papa  and  Mamma  shall  be  invited  in  yet. 


THE   BAND   BEGINS   TO   PLAY  393 

and  mamma,  for  a  real  dance  that  shall  take  the  wind 
out  of  the  sails  of  the  dance-halls  ?  Nothing  in  all 
the  world.  Nor  even  will  there  be  anything  to  stop 
Superintendent  Maxwell  from  taking  a  turn  himself, 
as  he  said  he  would,  or  me  either,  if  I  haven't 
danced  in  thirty  years.     I  just  dare  him  to  try. 

The  man  in  charge  of  the  ball-room  at  No.  177  — 
I  shall  flatly  refuse  to  call  it  a  yard  —  said  that  he 
didn't  believe  in  any  other  rule  than  order,  and 
nearly  took  my  breath  away,  for  just  then  I  had  a 
vision  of  the  club  in  the  doorway ;  but  it  was  only  a 
vision.  The  club  was  not  there.  As  he  said  it,  he 
mounted  the  band-stand  and  waved  the  crowd  to 
order  with  his  speaking-trumpet. 

"  A  young  lady  has  just  lost  her  gold  watch  on 
the  floor,"  he  said.  "  It  is  here  under  your  feet. 
Bring  it  to  me,  the  one  who  finds  it."  There  was  a 
curious  movement  of  the  crowd,  as  if  every  unit  in  it 
turned  once  about  itself  and  bowed,  and  presently  a 
shout  of  discovery  went  up.  A  little  girl  with  a 
poor  shawl  pinned  about  her  throat  came  forward 
with  the  watch.  The  manager  waved  his  trumpet  at 
me  with  a  bright  smile. 

"  You  see  it  works." 

The  entire  crowd  fell  in  behind  him  in  an  ecstatic 
cake-walk,  expressive  of  its  joy  and  satisfaction,  and 
so  they  went,  around  and  around. 

On  that  very  corner,  just  across  the  way,  a  dozen 


394 


THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 


years  ago,  I  gave  a  stupid  grocer  a  good  blowing  up 
for  hammering  his  cellar  door  full  of  envious  nails 
to  prevent  the  children  using  it  as  a  slide.  It  was 
all  the  playground  they  had. 


The  "Slide"  that  was  the  Children's  only  Playground  once. 


On  the  way  home  I  stopped  at  the  first  of  all  the 
public  schools  to  acquire  a  roof  playground,  to  see 
how  they  did  it  there.  The  janitor  had  been  van- 
quished, but  the  pedagogue  was  in  charge,  and  he 
had  organized  the  life  out  of  it  all.  The  children 
sat  around  listless,  and  made  little  or  no  attempt  to 
dance.  A  harassed  teacher  was  vainly  trying  to 
form  the  girls  into  ranks  for  exercises  of  some  kind. 


THE   BAND   BEGINS   TO   PLAY  395 

They  held  up  their  hands  in  desperate  endeavor  to 
get  her  ear,  only  to  have  them  struck  down  impa- 
tiently, or  to  be  summarily  put  out  if  they  tried 
again.  They  did  not  want  to  exercise.  They 
wanted  to  play.  I  tried  to  voice  their  grievance  to 
the  "  doctor  "  who  presided. 

"  Not  at  all,"  he  said  decisively ;  "  there  must  be 
system,  system  ! " 

"  Tommyrot ! "  said  my  Chicago  friend  at  my 
elbow,  and  I  felt  like  saying  "thank  you  !  "  I  don't 
know  but  I  did.  They  have  good  sense  in  Chicago. 
Jane  Addams  is  there. 

The  doctor  resumed  his  efforts  to  teach  the  boys 
something,  having  explained  to  me  that  downstairs, 
where  they  are  when  it  rains,  there  were  seven 
distinct  echoes  to  bother  the  band.  Two  girls 
"  spieled  "  in  the  corner,  a  kind  of  dancing  that  is 
not  favored  in  the  playground.  There  had  been 
none  of  that  at  the  other  places.  The  policeman 
eyed  the  show  with  a  frown. 

So  there  w^as  a  fly  in  our  ointment,  after  all. 
But  for  all  that,  the  janitor  is  downed,  his  day  dead. 
This  of  all  things  at  last  has  been  "settled  right," 
and  the  path  cleared  for  the  children's  feet,  not  in 
New  York  only,  but  everywhere  and  for  all  time. 
I,  too,  am  glad  to  be  alive  in  the  time  that  saw  it 
done. 


CHAPTER   XV 

"  NEIGHBOR  "    THE    PASSWORD 

Truly,  we  live  in  a  wonderful  time.  Here  have 
I  been  trying  to  bring  up  to  date  this  account  of 
the  battle  with  the  slum,  and  in  the  doing  of  it 
have  been  compelled,  not  once,  but  half  a  dozen 
times,  to  go  back  and  wipe  out  what  I  had  written 
because  it  no  longer  applied.  The  ink  was  not  dry 
on  the  page  that  pleaded  for  the  helpless  ones  who 
have  to  leave  the  hospital  before  they  are  fit  to  take 
up  their  battle  with  the  world,  so  as  to  make  room 
for  others  in  instant  need  —  one  of  the  saddest  of 
sights  that  has  wrung  the  heart  of  the  philanthropist 
these  many  years  —  when  I  read  in  my  paper  of  the 
four  million  dollar  gift  to  build  a  convalescents' 
home  at  once.  I  would  rather  be  in  that  man's 
shoes  than  be  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias.  I  would 
rather  be  blessed  by  the  grateful  heart  of  man  or 
woman,  who  but  just  now  was  without  hope,  than 
have  all  the  diamonds  in  the  Kimberley  mines.  Yes, 
ours  is  the  greatest  of  all  times.  Since  I  started 
putting  these  pages  in  shape  for  the  printer,  the 
Child  Labor  Committee  and  the  Tuberculosis  Com- 

396 


<' NEIGHBOR"  THE   PASSWORD  397 

mittee  have  been  formed  to  put  up  bars  against  the 
slum  where  it  roamed  unrestrained ;  the  Tenement 
House  Department  has  been  organized  and  got  under 
way,  and  the  knell  of  the  double-decker  and  the 
twenty-five-foot  lot  has  been  sounded.  Two  hun- 
dred tenements  are  going  up  to-day  under  the  new 
law,  that  are  in  all  respects  model  buildings,  as  good 
as  the  City  and  Suburban  Home  Company's  houses, 
though  built  for  revenue  only.  All  over  the  greater 
city  the  libraries  are  rising  which,  when  Mr.  Car- 
negie's munificent  plan  has  been  worked  out  to  the 
full,  are  to  make,  with  the  noble  central  edifice  in 
Bryant  Park,  the  greatest  free  library  system  of  any 
day,  with  a  princely  fortune  to  back  it.^  New 
bridges  are  spannrng  our  rivers,  tunnels  are  being 
bored,  engineers  are  blasting  a  way  for  the  city  out 
of  its  bonds  on  crowded  Manhattan,  devotion  and 
high  principle  rule  once  more  at  the  City  Hall, 
Cuba  is  free,  Tammany  is  out ;  the  boy  is  coming 
into  his  rights ;  the  toughs  of  Hell's  Kitchen  have 
taken  to  farming  on  the  site  of  Stryker's  Lane, 
demolished  and  gone. 

And  here  upon  my  table  lies  a  letter  from  the 
head- worker  of  the  University  Settlement,  which  the 

^  The  Astor,  Lenox,  and  Tilden  foundations  represent  a  total  of  some 
seven  millions  of  dollars.  The  great  central  library,  erected  by  the 
city,  is  to  cost  five  millions,  and  the  fifty  branches  for  which  the  city 
gives  the  sites  and  Andrew  Carnegie  the  buildings,  $5,200,000.  The 
city's  contribution  for  maintenance  will  be  over  half  a  million  yearly. 


398  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

postman  brought  half  an  hour  ago,  that  lets  more 
daylight  in,  it  seems  to  me,  than  all  the  rest.  He  has 
been  thinking,  he  writes,  of  how  to  yoke  the  public 
school  and  the  social  settlement  together,  and  the 
conviction  that  comes  to  everybody  who  thinks  to 
solve  problems,  has  come  to  him,  too,  that  the  way 
to  do  a  thing  is  to  do  it.  So  he  proposes,  since  they 
need  another  house  over  at  the  West  Side  branch, 
to  acquire  it  by  annexing  the  public  school  and 
turning  "  all  the  force  and  power  that  is  in  the 
branch  into  the  bare  walls  of  the  school,  there  to 
develop  a  social  spirit  and  an  enthusiasm  "  among 
young  and  old  that  shall  make  of  the  school  truly 
the  neighborhood  house  and  soul.  And  he  asks  us 
all  to  fall  in. 

I  say  it  lets  daylight  in,  because  we  have  all  felt  for 
some  time  that  something  like  this  was  bound  to 
come,  only  how  was  not  clear  yet.  Here  is  this  im- 
mense need  of  a  tenement  house  population  of  more 
than  two  million  souls :  something  to  take  the  place, 
as  far  as  anything  can,  of  the  home  that  isn't  there,  a 
place  to  meet  other  than  the  saloon ;  a  place  for  the 
young  to  do  their  courting  —  there  is  no  room  for  it 
in  the  tenement,  and  the  street  is  not  the  place  for  it, 
yet  it  has  got  to  be  done ;  a  place  to  make  their  elders 
feel  that  they  are  men  and  women,  something  else 
than  mere  rent-paying  units.  Why,  it  was  this  very 
need  that  gave  birth  to  the  social  settlement  among 


"NEIGHBOR"  THE   PASSWORD  399 

US,  and  we  see  now  that  with  the  old  machinery  it 
does  not  supply  it  and  never  can.  "  I  can  reach  the 
people  of  just  about  two  blocks  about  me  here," 
said  this  same  head  worker  of  the  same  settlement 
to  me  an  evening  or  two  ago,  "and  that  is  all." 
But  there  are  hundreds  of  blocks  filled  with  hungry 
minds  and  souls.  A  hundred  settlements  would  be 
needed  where  there  is  one. 

The  churches  could  not  meet  the  need.  They 
ought  to  and  some  day  they  will,  when  we  build 
the  church  down-town  and  the  mission  up-town.  But 
now  they  can't.  There  are  not  enough  of  them,  for 
one  thing.  They  do  try;  for  only  the  other  day, 
when  I  went  to  tell  the  Methodist  ministers  of  it, 
and  of  how  they  ought  to  back  up  the  effort  to  have 
the  public  school  thrown  open  on  Sundays  for  con- 
certs, lectures,  and  the  like,  after  the  first  shock  of 
surprise  they  pulled  themselves  together  man- 
fully and  said  that  they  would  do  it.  They  saw 
with  me  that  it  is  a  question,  not  of  damaging 
the  Lord's  Day,  but  of  wresting  it  from  the  devil, 
who  has  had  it  all  this  while  over  there  on  the 
East  Side,  and  on  the  West  Side  too.  All  along 
the  swarming  streets  with  no  church  in  sight,  but  a 
saloon  on  every  corner,  stand  the  big  schoolhouses 
with  their  spacious  halls,  empty  and  silent  and  grim, 
waiting  to  have  the  soul  breathed  into  them  that 
alone  can  make  their   teaching  effective  for  good 


400  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

citizenship.  They  belong  to  the  people.  Why 
should  they  not  be  used  by  the  people  Sunday  and 
week-day  and  day  and  night,  for  whatever  will  serve 
their  ends  —  if  the  janitor  has  a  fit? 

Now  here  come  the  social  settlements  with  their 
plan  of  doing  it.  What  claim  have  they  to'  stand 
in  the  gap  } 

This  one,  that  they  are  there  now,  though  they 
do  not  fill  it.  The  gap  has  been  too  much  for  them. 
They  need  the  help  of  those  they  came  to  succor 
quite  as  much  as  ^/ley  need  them.  I  have  no  desire  to 
find  fault  with  any  one  who  wants  to  help  his  neigh- 
bor. God  forbid !  I  am  not  even  a  settlement 
worker.  But  when  I  read,  as  I  did  yesterday,  a 
summing  up  of  the  meaning  of  settlements  by  three 
or  four  residents  in  such  houses,  and  see  education, 
reform  politics,  local  improvements,  legislation,  char- 
acterized as  the  aim  and  objects  of  settlement  work, 
I  am  afraid  somebody  is  on  the  wrong  track. 
Those  things  are  good,  provided  they  spring  natu- 
rally from  the  intellectual  life  that  moves  in  and 
about  the  settlement  house;  indeed,  unless  they 
do,  something  has  quite  decidedly  miscarried  there. 
But  they  are  not  the  object.  When  I  pick  up 
a  report  of  one  settlement  and  another,  and  find 
them  filled  with  little  essays  on  the  people  and 
their  ways  and  manners,  as  if  the  settlement  were 
some    kind   of    a   laboratory   where    they   prepare 


"NEIGHBOR"  THE   PASSWORD 


401 


human  specimens  for  inspection  and  classification, 
—  stick  them  on  pins  like  bugs  and  hold  them  up 
and  twirl  them  so  as  to  let  us  have  a  good  look,  — 
then  I  know  that  somebody  has  wandered  away  off, 
and  that  he  knows  he  has,  for  all  he  is  making  a 
brave  show  trying  to  persuade  himself  and  us  that 


■■ 

^^fc^feoB  ,     ^^P^H 

M^^lk 

A  Cooking  Lesson  in  Vacation  School :   the  Best  Temperance  Sermon. 

it  was  worth  the  money.  No  use  going  into  that 
farther.  The  fact  is  that  we  have  all  been  groping. 
We  saw  the  need  and  started  to  fill  it,  and  in  the 
strange  surroundings  we  lost  our  bearings  and  the 
password.  We  got  to  be  sociological  instead  of 
neighborly.     It  is  not  the  same  thing. 

Here  is  the  lost  password :  "  neighbor."    That  is  all 

2D 


402  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

there  is  to  it.  If  a  settlement  isn't  the  neighbor  of 
those  it  would  reach,  it  is  nothing  at  all.  "  A  place," 
said  the  sub-warden  of  Toynbee  Hall  in  the  discus- 
sion I  spoke  of,  and  set  it  on  even  keel  in  an  instant, 
"  a  place  of  good  will  rather  than  of  good  works." 
That  is  it.  We  had  become  strangers,  had  drifted 
apart,  and  the  settlement  came  to  introduce  us  to 
one  another  again,  as  it  were,  to  remind  us  that 
we  were  neighbors.  And  because  that  was  the 
one  thing  above  all  that  was  wanted,  it  became  an 
instant  success  where  it  was  not  converted  into 
a  social  experiment  station ;  and  even  that  could 
not  kill  it.  If  any  one  doubts  that  I  have  the  right 
password,  let  him  look  for  the  proof  in  the  organi- 
zation this  past  month  of  a  new  "  cooperative  social 
settlement,"  to  be  carried  on  "in  conjunction  and 
association  with  the  people  in  the  neighborhood." 
Not  a  new  idea  at  all,  only  a  fresh  grip  taken  on 
the  old  one.  It  is  sound  enough  and  strong  enough 
to  set  itself  right  if  we  will  only  let  it.  Only  last 
week  Dr.  Elliot  of  the  Hudson  Guild  over  in  West 
Twenty-sixth  Street  told  me  of  his  boys  and  their 
fathers  subscribing  their  savings  with  the  hope  of 
owning  the  guild  house  themselves.  They  had 
never  let  go  their  grip  on  the  idea  over  there.  They 
are  of  Felix  Adler's  flock. 

But  take  now  the  elements   as  we  have  them: 
this  great  and  terrible  longing  for  neighborliness 


<' NEIGHBOR"   THE   PASSWORD  403 

where  the  home  feeling  is  gone  with  the  home ;  the 
five  hundred  school  buildings  in  the  metropolis  that 
have  already  successfully  been  put  to  neighborhood 
use.  It  was  nothing  else  that  Dr.  Leipziger  did 
when  he  began  his  evening  lectures  in  the  schools 
to  grown  audiences  a  dozen  years  ago,  and  proudly 
pointed  to  a  record  of  twenty-two  thousand  in 
attendance  for  the  season.  Last  winter  nearly  a 
million  working-men  and  their  wives  attended  over 
three  thousand  lectures.^  Dr.  Leipziger  is  now  the 
strong  advocate  of  opening  the  schools  on  the  Sab- 
bath, as  a  kind  of  Sunday  opening  we  can  all  join 
in.  Of  course  he  is;  he  has  seen  what  it  means. 
These  factors,  the  need,  the  means,  and  then  the 
settlement  that  is  there  to  put  the  two  together,  as 
its  own  great  opportunity  —  has  it  not  a  good  claim  ? 
Experimenting  with  the  school.''  Well,  what  of 
it.?  TAey  can  stand  it.  What  else  have  we  been 
doing  the  last  half-dozen  years  or  more,  and  what 
splendid  results  have  we  not  to  show  for  it.'*  It  is 
the  spirit  that  calls  every  innovation  frills,  and  boasts 
that  we  have  got  the  finest  schools  in  the  world  which 
blocks  the  way  to  progress.      It  cropped  out  at  a 

*  The  first  year's  record  was  186  lectures  and  22,149  hearers.  Last 
winter  (i 901 -1902)  there  were  3172  lectures  in  over  100  places,  and 
the  total  attendance  was  928,251.  This  winter  there  will  be  115 
centres.  It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  churches  and  church  houses 
fall  in  with  the  plan  more  and  more  where  there  are  no  schools  to 
serve  as  halls. 


404  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

meeting  of  settlement  workers  and  schoolmen  that 
had  for  its  purpose  a  better  understanding.  In  the 
meeting  one  gray-haired  teacher  arose  and  said  that 
the  schools  as  they  are  were  good  enough  for  his 
father,  and  therefore  they  were  good  enough  for 
him.  That  teacher's  place  is  on  the  shelf  that  has 
been  provided  now  for  those  who  have  done  good 
work  in  a  day  that  is  past.  "Vaudeville,"  sneered 
the  last  Tammany  mayor,  when  the  East  Side  asked 
for  a  playground  for  the  children.  "  Vaudeville  for 
the  masses  killed  Rome."  The  masses  responded 
by  killing  him  politically.  My  father  was  a  teacher, 
and  it  is  because  he  was  a  good  one  and  taught  me 
that  when  growth  ceases  decay  begins,  that  I  am 
never  going  to  be  satisfied,  no  matter  how  good  the 
schools  get  to  be.  I  want  them  ever  closer  to  the 
people's  life,  because  upon  that  does  that  very  life 
depend.  Turn  back  to  what  I  said  about  the  slum 
tenant  and  see  what  it  means :  in  the  slum  only  4.97 
per  cent  of  native  parentage.  All  but  five  in  a  hun- 
dred had  either  come  over  the  sea,  or  else  their  parents 
had.  Nearly  half  (46.65)  were  ignorant,  illiterate ; 
for  the  whole  city  the  percentage  of  illiteracy  was 
only  7.69.  Turn  to  the  reformatory  showing :  of  ten 
thousand  and  odd  prisoners  66.55  utterly  illiterate, 
or  able  to  read  and  write  only  with  difficulty.  Do 
you  see  how  the  whole  battle  with  the  slum  is 
fought  out  in  and  around  the  public  school  ?     For 


« NEIGHBOR"  THE  PASSWORD  405 

in  ignorance  selfishness  finds  its  opportunity,  and 
the  two  together  make  the  slum. 

The  mere  teaching  is  only  a  part  of  it.  The  school 
itself  is  a  bigger — the  meeting  there  of  rich  and 
poor.  Out  of  the  public  school  comes,  must  come 
if  we  are  to  last,  the  real  democracy  that  has  our 
hope  in  keeping.  I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to 
compel  every  father  to  send  his  boy  to  the  public 
school ;  I  would  do  it,  and  so  perchance  bring  the 
school  up  to  the  top  notch  where  it  was  lacking. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  to-day  sets  a 
splendid  example  to  us  all  in  letting  his  boys 
mingle  with  those  who  are  to  be  their  fellow-citizens 
by  and  by.  It  is  precisely  in  the  sundering  of  our 
society  into  classes  that  have  little  in  common, 
that  are  no  longer  neighbors,  that  our  peril  lives.  A 
people  cannot  work  together  for  the  good  of  the 
state  if  they  are  not  on  speaking  terms.  In  the 
gap  the  slum  grows  up.  That  was  one  reason 
why  I  hailed  with  a  shout  the  proposition  of  Mr. 
Schwab,  the  steel  trust  millionnaire,  to  take  a 
regiment  of  boys  down  to  Staten  Island  on  an 
excursion  every  day  in  summer.  Let  me  see,  I 
haven't  told  about  that,  I  think.  He  had  bought 
a  large  property  down  there,  all  beach  and  lake 
and  field  and  woodland,  and  proposed  to  build  a 
steamer  with  room  for  a  thousand  or  two,  and  then 
take  them  down  with  a  band  of   music  on  board, 


406  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

and  give  them  a  swim,  a  romp,  and  a  jolly  good 
time.  As  soon  as  he  spoke  to  me  about  it,  I  said: 
Yes !  and  hitch  it  to  the  public  school  somehow ; 
make  it  part  of  the  curriculum.  No  more  nature 
study  out  of  a  barrel !  Take  the  whole  school, 
teachers  and  all,  and  let  them  do  their  own  gathering 
of  specimens.  So  the  children  shall  be  under 
efficient  control,  and  so  the  tired  teacher  shall  get 
a  chance  too.  But  more  than  all,  so  it  may  befall 
that  the  boys  themselves  shall  come  to  know  one  an- 
other better  and  that  more  of  them  shall  get  together ; 
for  what  boy  does  not  want  a  jolly  good  romp, 
and  why  should  he  not  be  Mr.  Schwab's  guest  for 
the  day,  if  he  does  count  his  dollars  by  millions  ? 

The  working  plan  the  Board  of  Education  can  be 
trusted  to  provide.  I  think  it  will  do  it  gladly,  once 
it  understands.  Indeed,  why  should  it  not.?  No 
one  thinks  of  surrendering  the  schools,  but  simply 
of  enlisting  the  young  enthusiasm  that  is  looking 
for  employment,  and  of  a  way  of  turning  it  to 
use,  while  the  board  is  constantly  calling  for  just 
that  priceless  personal  element  which  money  can- 
not buy  and  without  which  the  schools  will  never 
reach  their  highest  development.  Precedents  there 
are  in  plenty.  If  not,  we  can  make  them.  New 
York  is  the  metropolis.  In  Toledo  the  Park 
Commissioners  take  the  public  school  boys  sleigh- 
riding    in    winter.      Our    Park    Commissioner    is 


"NEIGHBOR"   THE   PASSWORD  407 

ploughing  up  land  for  them  to  learn  farming  and 
gardening.  It  is  all  experimenting,  and  let  us  be 
glad  we  have  got  to  that,  if  we  do  blunder  once  and 
again.  The  laboratory  study,  the  bug  business,  we 
shall  get  rid  of,  and  we  shall  get  rid  of  some  ante- 
diluvian ways  that  hamper  our  educational  develop- 
ment yet.  We  shall  find  a  way  to  make  the  schools 
centres  of  distribution  in  our  library  system  as  its 
projectors  have  hoped.  Just  now  it  cannot  be  done, 
because  it  takes  about  a  year  for  a  book  to  pass  the 
ten  or  twelve  different  kinds  of  censorship  our  sec- 
tarian zeal  has  erected  about  the  school.  We  shall 
have  the  assembly  halls  thrown  open,  not  only  for 
Dr.  Leipziger's  lectures  and  Sunday  concerts  (al- 
ready one  permit  has  been  granted  for  the  latter), 
but  for  trades-union  meetings,  and  for  political 
meetings,  if  I  have  my  way.  Until  we  consider  our 
politics  quite  good  enough  to  be  made  welcome  in 
the  school,  they  won't  be  good  enough  for  it.  The 
day  we  do  let  them  in,  the  saloon  will  lose  its  grip, 
and  not  much  before.  When  the  fathers  and 
mothers  meet  under  the  school  roof  as  in  their 
neighborhood  house,  and  the  children  have  their 
games,  their  clubs,  and  their  dances  "there  —  when 
the  school,  in  short,  takes  the  place  in  the  life  of  the 
people  in  the  crowded  quarters  which  the  saloon 
now  monopolizes,  there  will  no  longer  be  a  Saloon 
question  in  politics ;  and  that  day  the  slum  is  beaten. 


4o8 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE     SLUM 


Such  a  Ball-room  I 

Very  likely  I  shall  not  find  many  to  agree  with 
me  on  this  question  of  political  meetings.  Non- 
partisan let  them  be  then.  So  we  shall  more  readily 
find  our  way  out  of  the  delusion  that  national  poli- 
tics have  any  place  in  municipal  elections  or  affairs, 
a  notion  that  has  delayed  the  day  of  decency  too 
long.  We  shall  grow,  along  with  the  schools,  and 
by  and  by  our  party  politics  will  be  clean  enough 
to  sit  in  the  school  seats  too.  And  oh  !  by  the  way, 
as  to  those  seats,  is  there  any  special  virtue  in  the 
"dead-line"  of  straight  rows  that  have  come  down 
to  us  from  the  time  of  the  Egyptians  or  farther  back 
still.?     No,  I  would  not  lay  impious  hand  on  any 


"NEIGHBOR"   THE   PASSWORD  409 

hallowed  tradition,  educational  or  otherwise.  But 
is  it  that  ?  And  why  is  it  ?  It  would  be  so  much 
easier  to  make  the  school  the  people's  hall  and  the 
boys'  club,  if  those  seats  could  be  moved  around  in 
human  fashion ;  they  might  come  naturally  into  hu- 
man shape  in  the  doing  of  it.  But,  as  I  said,  I 
wouldn't  for  the  world  —  not  for  the  world.  Only, 
why  is  the  dead-line  hallowed  ? 

I  am  willing  to  leave  it  to  the  Board.  We  are  sin- 
gularly fortunate  in  having  just  now  a  mayor  who 
will  listen,  a  Board  of  Education  that  will  act,  and  a 
superintendent  of  school  buildings  who  can  and 
will  build  schools  to  meet  neighborhood  needs  —  if 
we  will  make  them  plain.  The  last  time  I  dropped 
into  his  office  I  found  him  busy,  between  tiffs  with 
contractors,  sketching  an  underground  story  for  the 
schoolhouse,  like  the  great  hall  of  the  Cooper  Insti- 
tute, that  should  at  the  same  time  serve  the  purpose 
of  an  assembly  hall,  and  put  the  roof  garden  one 
story  nearer  the  street.  That  was  his  answer  to 
the  cry  of  elevators.  "  We  do  not  need  municipal 
boys'  club  houses,"  said  Mayor  Low  in  vetoing  the 
bill  to  build  them  last  winter,  "  we  have  the  schools." 
True !  Then  let  us  have  them  used,  and  if  the  class- 
room is  not  the  best  kind  of  place  for  them,  the  ex- 
perience of  the  settlements  will  show  us  what  kind 
is.  They  carry  on  no  end  of  such  clubs.  And  let 
the  Board  of   Education  trustily  leave  the  rest  to 


4IO  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

Superintendent  Snyder,  who  knows.  Isn't  it  enough 
to  make  a  man  believe  the  millennium  has  come,  to 
find  that  there  is  at  last  some  one  who  knows? 
In  a  copy  of  Charities  which  just  now  came  in 
(did  I  not  say  that  it  goes  that  way  all  the  time?) 
I  read  that  the  Chicago  Small  Parks  Commission  has 
recommended  nine  neighborhood  parks  at  a  cost 
of  a  million  dollars,  —  wise  City  of  the  Winds !  we 
waited  till  we  had  to  pay  a  million  for  each  park,  — 
but  that  the  playgrounds  had  been  left  to  the  Board 
of  Education,  which  body  was  "  not  certain  whether 
school  funds  may  be  spent  for  playgrounds  apart 
from  buildings."  However,  they  are  going  to  pro- 
vide seventy-five  school  yards  big  enough  to  romp 
in,  and  the  other  trouble  will  be  got  over.  In 
Boston  they  are  planning  neighborhood  entertain- 
ment as  a  proper  function  of  the  school.  Here 
we  shall  find  for  both  school  and  settlement  their 
proper  places  with  one  swoop.  The  kindergarten, 
manual  training,  and  the  cooking  school,  all  experi- 
ments in  their  day,  cried  out  as  fads  by  some,  have 
brought  common  sense  in  their  train.  When  it 
rules  the  public  school  in  our  cities  —  I  said  it  be- 
fore—  we  can  put  off  our  armor;  the  battle  with 
the  slum  will  be  over. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

REFORM  BY   HUMANE  TOUCH 

I  HAVE  sketched  in  outline  the  gains  achieved  in 
the  metropolis  since  its  conscience  awoke.  Now, 
in  closing  this  account,  I  am  reminded  of  the  story 
of  an  old  Irishman  who  died  here  a  couple  of  years 
ago.  Patrick  Mullen  was  an  honest  blacksmith. 
He  made  guns  for  a  living.  He  made  them  so  well 
that  one  with  his  name  on  it  was  worth  a  good  deal 
more  than  the  market  price  of  guns.  Other  makers 
went  to  him  with  offers  of  money  for  the  use  of  his 
stamp ;  but  they  never  went  twice.  When  some- 
times a  gun  of  very  superior  make  was  brought  to 
him  to  finish,  he  would  stamp  it  P.  Mullen,  never 
Patrick  Mullen.  Only  to  that  which  he  himself 
had  wrought  did  he  give  his  honest  name  without 
reserve.  When  he  died,  judges  and  bishops  and 
other  great  men  crowded  to  his  modest  home  by  the 
East  River,  and  wrote  letters  to  the  newspapers  tell- 
ing how  proud  they  had  been  to  call  him  friend. 
Yet  he  was,  and  remained  to  the  end,  plain  Patrick 
Mullen,  blacksmith  and  gun-maker. 

In  his  life  he  supplied  the  answer  to  the  sigh  of 

413 


414  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

dreamers  in  all  days:  when  will  the  millennium 
come?  It  will  come  when  every  man  is  a  Patrick 
Mullen  at  his  own  trade ;  not  merely  a  P.  Mullen, 
but  a  Patrick  Mullen.  The  millennium  of  munici- 
pal politics,  when  there  shall  be  no  slum  to  fight, 
will  come  when  every  citizen  does  his  whole  duty 
as  a  citizen,  not  before.  As  long  as  he  "  despises 
politics,  "  and  deputizes  another  to  do  it  for  him, 
whether  that  other  wears  the  stamp  of  a  Croker  or 
of  a  Piatt,  —  it  matters  little  which,  —  we  shall 
have  the  slum,  and  be  put  periodically  to  the  trouble 
and  the  shame  of  draining  it  in  the  public  sight.  A 
citizen's  duty  is  one  thing  that  cannot  be  farmed 
out  safely ;  and  the  slum  is  not  limited  by  the  rook- 
eries of  Mulberry  or  Ludlow  streets.  It  has  long 
roots  that  feed  on  the  selfishness  and  dulness  of 
Fifth  Avenue  quite  as  greedily  as  on  the  squalor 
of  the  Sixth  Ward.  The  two  are  not  nearly  so  far 
apart  as  they  look. 

I  am  not  saying  this  because  it  is  anything  new, 
but  because  we  have  had,  within  the  memory  of  us 
all,  an  illustration  of  its  truth  in  municipal  poli- 
tics. Waring  and  Roosevelt  were  the  Patrick  Mul- 
lens of  the  reform  administration  which  Tammany 
replaced  with  her  insolent  platform, "  To  hell  with 
reform ! "  It  was  not  an  ideal  administration,  but 
it  can  be  said  of  it,  at  least,  that  it  was  up  to  the 
times  it  served.     It  made  compromises  with  spoils 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE   TOUCH 


415 


politics,  and  they  were  wretched  failures.  It  took 
Waring  and  Roosevelt  on  the  other  plan,  on  which 
they  insisted,  of  divorcing  politics  from  the  pub- 
lic business,  and  they  let  in  more  light  than  even 
my  small  parks  over  on  the  East  Side.  For  they 
showed  us  where  we  stood  and  what  was  the  matter 


Athletic  Meets  in  Crotona  Park. 

with  us.  We  believed  in  Waring  when  he  demon- 
strated the  success  of  his  plan  for  cleaning  the 
streets;  not  before.  When  Roosevelt  announced 
his  programme,  of  enforcing  the  excise  law  because 
it  was  law,  a  howl  arose  that  would  have  frightened 
a  less  resolute  man  from  his  purpose.     But  he  went 


4l6  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

right  on  doing  the  duty  he  was  sworn  to  do.  And 
when,  at  the  end  of  three  months  of  clamor  and 
abuse,  we  saw  the  spectacle  of  the  saloon  keepers 
formally  resolving  to  help  the  police  instead  of  hin- 
dering them ;  of  the  prison  ward  in  Bellevue  Hos- 
pital standing  empty  for  three  days  at  a  time,  an 
astonishing  and  unprecedented  thing,  which  the 
warden  could  only  attribute  to  the  "  prompt  closing 
of  the  saloon  at  one  a.m."  ;  and  of  the  police 
force  recovering  its  lost  self-respect,  —  we  had  found 
out  more  and  greater  things  than  whether  the 
excise  law  was  a  good  or  a  bad  law.  We  under- 
stood what  Roosevelt  meant  when  he  insisted  upon 
the  "  primary  virtues  "  of  honesty  and  courage  in 
the  conduct  of  public  business.*  For  the  want  of 
them  in  us,  half  the  laws  that  touched  our  daily 
lives  had  became  dead  letters  or  vehicles  of  black- 
mail and  oppression.  It  was  worth  something  to 
have  that  lesson  taught  us  in  that  way;  to  find 
out  that  simple,  straightforward,  honest  dealing 
as  between  man  and  man  is  aft  r  all  effective  in 
politics  as  in  gun-making.  Perhaps  we  have  not 
mastered  the  lesson  yet.  But  we  have  not  dis- 
charged the  teacher,  either. 

Courage,  indeed !  There  were  times  during  that 
stormy  spell  when  it  seemed  as  if  we  had  grown 
wholly  and  hopelessly  flabby  as  a  people.  All  the 
outcry  against  the   programme    of   order   did    not 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE   TOUCH  417 

come  from  the  lawless  and  the  disorderly,  by  any 
means.  Ordinarily  decent,  conservative  citizens 
joined  in  counselling  moderation  and  virtual  com- 
promise with  the  law-breakers  —  it  was  nothing 
else  —  to  "avoid  trouble."  The  old  love  of  fair 
play  had  been  whittled  down  by  the  jack-knife  of 
all-pervading  expediency  to  an  anaemic  desire  to 
"  hold  the  scales  even,"  which  is  a  favorite  modern 
device  of  the  devil  for  paralyzing  action  in  men. 
You  cannot  hold  the  scales  even  in  a  moral  issue. 
It  inevitably  results  in  the  triumph  of  evil,  which 
asks  nothing  better  than  the  even  chance  to  which 
it  is  not  entitled.  When  the  trouble  in  the  Police 
Board  had  reached  a  point  where  it  seemed  impos- 
sible not  to  understand  that  Roosevelt  and  his  side 
were  fighting  a  cold  and  treacherous  conspiracy 
against  the  cause  of  good  government,  we  had  the 
spectacle  of  a  Christian  Endeavor  Society  inviting 
the  man  who  had  hatched  the  plot,  the  bitter  and 
relentless  enemy  whom  the  mayor  had  summoned 
to  resign,  and  afterward  did  his  best  to  remove  as 
a  fatal  obstacle  to  reform,  —  inviting  this  man  to 
come  before  it  and  speak  of  Christian  citizenship ! 
It  was  a  sight  to  make  the  bosses  hug  themselves 
with  glee.  For  Christian  citizenship  is  their  night- 
mare, and  nothing  is  so  cheering  to  them  as  evi- 
dence that  those  who  profess  it  have  no  sense. 
Apart  from  the  moral  bearings  of  it,  what  this 


41 8        THE  BATTLE  WITH  THE  SLUM 

question  of  enforcement  of  law  means  in  the  life 
of  the  poor  was  illustrated  by  testimony  given 
before  the  Police  Board  under  oath.  A  captain 
was  on  trial  for  allowing  the  policy  swindle  to  go 
unchecked  in  his  precinct.  Policy  is  a  kind  of 
penny  lottery,  with  alleged  daily  drawings  which 
never  take  place.  The  whole  thing  is  a  pestilent 
fraud,  which  is  allowed  to  exist  only  because  it 
pays  heavy  blackmail  to  the  police  and  the  politi- 
cians. Expert  witnesses  testified  that  eight  policy 
shops  in  the  Twenty-first  Ward,  which  they  had 
visited,  did  a  business  averaging  about  thirty-two 
dollars  a  day  each.  The  Twenty-first  is  a  poor 
Irish  tenement  ward.  The  policy  sharks  were  get- 
ting two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  or  more  a  day 
of  the  hard-earned  wages  of  those  poor  people,  in 
sums  of  from  one  and  two  cents  to  a  quarter,  with- 
out making  any  return  for  it.  The  thing  would 
seem  incredible  were  it  not  too  sadly  familiar. 
The  saloon  keeper  got  his  share  of  what  was  left, 
and  rewarded  his  customer  by  posing  as  the  "  friend 
of  the  poor  man  "  whenever  his  business  was  under 
scrutiny;  I  have  yet  in  my  office  the  record  of  a 
single  week  during  the  hottest  of  the  fight  between 
Roosevelt  and  the  saloons,  as  showing  of  what  kind 
that  friendship  is.  It  embraces  the  destruction  of 
eight  homes  by  the  demon  of  drunkenness ;  the 
suicide  of  four  wives,  the  murder  of  two  others  by 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE  TOUCH  419 

drunken  husbands,  the  killing  of  a  policeman  in  the 
street,  and  the  torture  of  an  aged  woman  by  her 
rascal  son,  who  "  used  to  be  a  good  boy  till  he  took 
to  liquor,  when  he  became  a  perfect  devil."  In 
that  role  he  finally  beat  her  to  death  for  giving 
shelter  to  some  evicted  fellow-tenants  who  else 
would  have  had  to  sleep  in  the  street.  Nice 
friendly  turn,  wasn't  it? 

And  yet  there  was  something  to  be  said  for  the 
saloon  keeper.  He  gave  the  man  the  refuge  from 
his  tenement  which  he  needed.  I  say  needed,  pur- 
posely. There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  talk  in  our 
day  about  the  saloon  as  a  social  necessity.  About 
all  there  is  to  that  is  that  the  saloon  is  there,  and 
the  necessity  too.  Man  is  a  social  animal,  whether 
he  lives  in  a  tenement  or  in  a  palace.  But  the  pal- 
ace has  resources;  the  tenement  has  not.  It  is  a 
good  place  to  get  away  from  at  all  times.  The 
saloon  is  cheery  and  bright,  and  never  far  away. 
The  man  craving  human  companionship  finds  it 
there.  He  finds,  too,  in  the  saloon  keeper  one  who 
understands  his  wants  much  better  than  the  reformer 
who  talks  civil  service  in  the  meetings.  "Civil  ser- 
vice "  to  him  and  his  kind  means  yet  a  contrivance 
for  keeping  them  out  of  a  job.  The  saloon  keeper 
knows  the  boss,  if  he  is  not  himself  the  boss  or  his 
lieutenant,  and  can  steer  him  to  the  man  who  will 
spend  all  day  at  the  City  Hall,  if  need  be,  to  get  a 


420  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

job  for  a  friend,  and  all  night  pulling  wires  to  keep 
him  in  it,  if  trouble  is  brewing.  Mr.  Beecher  used 
to  say,  when  pleading  for  bright  hymn  tunes,  that 
he  didn't  want  the  devil  to  have  the  monopoly  of  all 
the  good  music  in  the  world.  The  saloon  has  had 
the  monopoly  up  to  date  of  all  the  cheer  in  the 
tenements.  If  its  owner  has  made  it  pan  out  to  his 
own  advantage  and  the  boss's,  we  at  least  have  no 
just  cause  of  complaint.  We  let  him  have  the  field 
all  to  himself. 

It  is  good  to  know  that  the  day  is  coming  when 
he  will  have  a  rival.  Model  saloons  may  never  be 
more  than  a  dream  in  New  York,  but  even  now  the 
first  of  a  number  of  "  social  halls  "  is  being  planned 
by  Miss  Lillian  Wald  of  the  Nurses'  Settlement  and 
her  co-workers  that  shall  give  the  East  Side  the 
chance  to  eat  and  dance  and  make  merry  without 
the  stigma  of  the  bar  upon  it  all.  The  first  of  the 
buildings  will  be  opened  within  a  year. 

As  to  this  boss,  of  whom  we  hear  so  much,  what 
manner  of  man  is  he  ?  That  depends,  on  how  you 
look  at  him.  I  have  one  in  mind,  a  district  boss, 
whom  you  would  accept  instantly  as  a  type  if  I 
were  to  mention  his  name,  which  I  shall  not  do  for 
a  reason  which  I  fear  will  shock  you :  he  and  I  are 
friends.  In  his  private  capacity  I  have  real  regard 
for  him.  As  a  politician  and  a  boss  I  have  none  at 
all.     I  am  aware  that  this  is  taking  low  ground  in  a 


REFORM  BY  HUMANE  TOUCH  42 1 

discussion  of  this  kind,  but  perhaps  the  reader  will 
better  understand  the  relations  of  his  "  district "  to 
him,  if  I  let  him  into  mine.  There  is  no  political 
bond  between  us,  of  either  district  or  party,  just 
the  reverse.  It  is  purely  personal.  He  was  once 
a  police  justice,  —  at  that  time  he  kept  a  saloon, — 
and  I  have  known  few  with  more  common  sense, 
which  happens  to  be  the  one  quality  especially 
needed  in  that  office.  Up  to  the  point  where  poli- 
tics came  in  I  could  depend  upon  him  entirely. 
At  that  point  he  let  me  know  bluntly  that  he  was 
in  the  habit  of  running  his  district  to  suit  himself. 
The  way  he  did  it  brought  him  under  the  just  accu- 
sation of  being  guilty  of  every  kind  of  rascality 
known  to  politics.  When  next  our  paths  would 
cross  each  other,  it  would  very  likely  be  on  some 
errand  of  mercy,  to  which  his  feet  were  always 
swift.  I  recall  the  distress  of  a  dear  and  gentle  lady 
at  whose  table  I  once  took  his  part.  She  could  not 
believe  that  there  was  any  good  in  him;  what  he 
did  must  be  done  for  effect.  Some  time  after  that 
she  wrote,  asking  me  to  look  after  an  East  Side 
family  that  was  in  great  trouble.  It  was  during  the 
severe  cold  spell  of  the  winter  of  1898,  and  there 
was  need  of  haste.  I  went  over  at  once ;  but  al- 
though I  had  lost  no  time,  I  found  my  friend  the 
boss  ahead  of  me.  It  was  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to 
be  able  to  report  to  my  correspondent  that  he  had 


422  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

seen  to  their  comfort,  and  to  add  that  it  was  unpo- 
litical charity  altogether.  The  family  was  that  of  a 
Jewish  widow  with  a  lot  of  little  children.  He  is  a 
Roman  Catholic.  There  was  not  even  a  potential 
vote  in  the  house,  the  children  being  all  girls. 
They  were  not  in  his  district,  to  boot ;  and  as  for 
effect,  he  was  rather  shamefaced  at  my  catching  him 
at  it.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  soul  has  ever  heard  of 
the  case  from  him  to  this  day. 

My  friend  is  a  Tammany  boss,  and  I  shall  not  be 
accused  of  partiality  for  him  on  that  account.  Dur- 
ing that  same  cold  spell  a  politician  of  the  other 
camp  came  into  my  office  and  gave  me  a  hundred 
dollars  to  spend  as  I  saw  fit  among  the  poor.  His 
district  was  miles  up-town,  and  he  was  most  unwill- 
ing to  disclose  his  identity,  stipulating  in  the  end 
that  no  one  but  I  should  know  where  the  money 
came  from.  He  was  not  seeking  notoriety.  The 
plight  of  the  suffering  had  appealed  to  him,  and  he 
wanted  to  help  where  he  could,  that  was  all. 

Now,  I  have  not  the  least  desire  to  glorify  the 
boss  in  this.  He  is  not  glorious  to  me.  He  is 
simply  human.  Often  enough  he  is  a  coarse  and 
brutal  fellow,  in  his  morals  as  in  his  politics.  Again, 
he  may  have  some  very  engaging  personal  traits 
that  bind  his  friends  to  him  with  the  closest  of  ties. 
The  poor  man  sees  the  friend,  the  charity,  the 
power  that  is  able  and  ready  to  help  him  in  need ; 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE   TOUCH  423 

is  it  any  wonder  that  he  overlooks  the  source  of  this 
power,  this  plenty,  —  that  he  forgets  the  robbery  in 
the  robber  who  is  "  good  to  the  poor  "  ?  Anyhow, 
if  anybody  got  robbed,  it  was  "  the  rich."  With  the 
present  ethical  standards  of  the  slum,  it  is  easy  to 
construct  a  scheme  of  social  justice  out  of  it  that  is 
very  comforting  all  round,  even  to  the  boss  himself, 
though  he  is  in  need  of  no  sympathy  or  excuse. 
"  Politics,"  he  will  tell  me  in  his  philosophic  moods, 
"is  a  game  for  profit.  The  city  foots  the  bills." 
Patriotism  means  to  him  working  for  the  ticket  that 
shall  bring  more  profit. 

"  I  regard,"  he  says,  lighting  his  cigar,  "  a  re- 
peater as  a  shade  off  a  murderer,  but  you  are  obliged 
to  admit  that  in  my  trade  he  is  a  necessary  evil. " 
I  am  not  obliged  to  do  anything  of  the  kind,  but  I 
can  understand  his  way  of  looking  at  it.  He  simply 
has  no  political  conscience.  He  has  gratitude,  loy- 
alty to  a  friend,  —  that  is  part  of  his  stock  in  trade, 
—  fighting  blood,  plenty  of  it,  all  the  good  qualities 
of  the  savage;  nothing  more.  And  a  savage  he  is, 
politically,  with  no  soul  above  the  dross.  He  would 
not  rob  a  neighbor  for  the  world ;  but  he  will  steal 
from  the  city  —  though  he  does  not  call  it  by  that 
name  —  without  a  tremor,  and  count  it  a  good  mark. 
When  I  tell  him  that,  he  waves  his  hand  toward 
Wall  Street  as  representative  of  the  business  com- 
munity, and  toward  the  office  of  his  neighbor,  the 


424  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

padrofte,  as  representative  of  the  railroads,  and  says 
with  a  laugh,  "  Don't  they  all  do  it  ? " 

The  boss  believes  in  himself.  It  is  one  of  his 
strong  points.  And  he  has  experience  to  back  him. 
In  the  fall  of  1894  we  shook  off  boss  rule  in  New 
York,  and  set  up  housekeeping  for  ourselves.  We 
kept  it  up  three  years,  and  then  went  back  to  the 
old  style.  I  should  judge  that  we  did  it  because  we 
were  tired  of  too  much  virtue.  Perhaps  we  were 
not  built  to  hold  such  a  lot  at  once.  Besides, 
it  is  much  easier  to  be  ruled  than  to  rule.  That  fall, 
after  the  election,  when  I  was  concerned  about 
what  would  become  of  my  small  parks,  of  the  Health 
Department  in  which  I  took  such  just  pride,  and  of 
a  dozen  other  things,  I  received  one  unvarying  reply 
to  my  anxious  question,  or  rather  two.  If  it  was  the 
Health  Department,  I  was  told :  "  Go  to  Piatt.  He 
is  the  only  man  who  can  do  it.  He  is  a  sensible 
man,  and  will  see  that  it  is  protected. "  If  small 
parks,  it  was :  "  Go  to  Croker.  He  will  not  allow 
the  work  to  be  stopped."  A  playgrounds  bill  was 
to  be  presented  in  the  legislature,  and  everybody 
advised :  "  Go  to  Piatt.  He  won't  object,  it  is 
popular."  And  so  on.  My  advisers  were  not  poli- 
ticians. They  were  business  men,  but  recently  hon- 
estly interested  in  reform.  I  was  talking  one  day, 
with  a  gentleman  of  very  wide  reputation  as  a  phi- 
lanthropist, about  the  unhappy  lot  of  the  old  fire- 


REFORM    BY   HUMANE   TOUCH  425 

engine  horses,  —  which,  after  lives  of  toil  that 
deserve  a  better  fate,  are  sold  for  a  song  to  drag 
out  a  weary  existence  hauling  some  huckster's  cart 
around,  —  and  wishing  that  they  might  be  pen- 
sioned off  to  live  out  their  years  on  a  farm,  with 
enough  to  eat  and  a  chance  to  roll  in  the  grass.  He 
was  much  interested,  and  promptly  gave  me  this 
advice :  "  I  tell  you  what  you  do.  You  go  and  see 
Croker.  He  likes  horses."  No  wonder  the  boss 
believes  in  himself.  He  would  be  less  than  human 
if  he  did  not.     And  he  is  very  human. 

I  had  voted  on  the  day  of  the  Greater  New  York 
election,  —  the  Tammany  election,  as  we  learned  to 
call  it  afterward,  —  in  my  home  out  in  the  Borough 
of  Queens,  and  went  over  to  the  depot  to  catch  the 
train  for  the  city.  On  the  platform  were  half  a 
dozen  of  my  neighbors,  all  business  men,  all 
"friends  of  reform."  Some  of  them  were  just  down 
from  breakfast.  One  I  remember  as  introducing  a 
resolution,  in  a  meeting  we  had  held,  about  the  dis- 
courtesy of  local  politicians.  He  looked  surprised 
when  reminded  that  it  was  election  day.  "  Why,  is 
it  to-day  ? "  he  said.  "  They  didn't  send  any  car- 
riage," said  another  regretfully.  "  I  don't  see  what's 
the  use,"  said  the  third ;  "  the  roads  are  just  as  bad 
as  when  we  began  talking  about  it."  (We  had  been 
trying  to  mend  them.)  The  fourth  yawned  and  said : 
"  I  don't  care.     I  have  my  business  to  attend  to." 


426  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

And  they  took  the  train,  which  meant  that  they 
lost  their  votes.  The  Tammany  captain  was  busy 
hauling  his  voters  by  the  cart-load  to  the  polling 
place.  Over  there  stood  a  reform  candidate  who 
had  been  defeated  in  the  primary,  and  puffed  out 
his  chest.  "  The  politicians  are  afraid  of  me,"  he 
said.  They  slapped  him  on  the  back,  as  they 
went  by,  and  told  him  that  he  was  a  devil  of  a 
fellow. 

So  Tammany  came  back.  And  four  long  years 
we  swore  at  it.  But  I  am  afraid  we  swore  at  the 
wrong  fellow.  The  real  Tammany  is  not  the  con- 
scienceless rascal  that  plunders  our  treasury  and 
fattens  on  our  substance.  That  one  is  a  mere 
counterfeit.  It  is  the  voter  who  waits  for  a  carriage 
to  take  him  to  the  polls ;  the  man  who  "  doesn't  see 
what's  the  use  " ;  the  business  man  who  says  "  busi- 
ness is  business,"  and  has  no  time  to  waste  on  vot- 
ing ;  the  citizen  who  "  will  wait  to  see  how  the  cat 
jumps,  because  he  doesn't  want  to  throw  his  vote 
away  " ;  the  cowardly  American  who  "  doesn't  want 
to  antagonize  "  anybody ;  the  fool  who  "  washes  his 
hands  of  politics."  These  are  the  real  Tammany, 
the  men  after  the  boss's  own  heart.  For  every  one 
whose  vote  he  buys,  there  are  two  of  these  who 
give  him  theirs  for  nothing.  We  shall  get  rid  of 
him  when  these  withdraw  their  support,  when  they 
become  citizens  of  the   Patrick   Mullen  stamp,  as 


REFORM    BY  HUMANE  TOUCH  427 

faithful  at  the  polling  place  as  he  was  at  the  forge ; 
not  before. 

There  is  as  much  work  for  reform  at  the  top  as 
at  the  bottom.  The  man  in  the  slum  votes  accord- 
ing to  his  light,  and  the  boss  holds  the  candle.  But 
the  boss  is  in  no  real  sense  a  leader.  He  follows 
instead,  always  as  far  behind  the  moral  sentiment  of 
the  community  as  he  thinks  is  safe.  He  has  heard 
it  said  that  a  community  will  not  be  any  better  than 
its  citizens,  and  that  it  will  be  just  as  good  as  they 
are,  and  he  applies  the  saying  to  himself.  He  is 
no  worse  a  boss  than  the  town  deserves.  I  can 
conceive  of  his  taking  credit  to  himself  as  some 
kind  of  a  moral  instrument  by  which  the  virtue 
of  the  community  may  be  graded,  though  that  is 
most  unlikely.  He  does  not  bother  himself  with 
the  morals  of  anything.  But  right  here  is  his 
Achilles  heel.  The  man  has  no  conscience.  He 
cannot  tell  the  signs  of  it  in  others.  It  always 
comes  upon  him  unawares.  Reform  to  him  simply 
means  the  "outs"  fighting  to  get  in.  The  real 
thing  he  will  always  underestimate.  Witness  Richard 
Croker  in  the  last  election  offering  Bishop  Potter, 
after  his  crushing  letter  to  the  mayor,  to  join  him 
in  purifying  the  city,  and,  when  politely  refused,  set- 
ting up  an  "  inquiry  "  of  his  own.  The  conclusion 
is  irresistible  that  he  thought  the  bishop  either  a 
fool  or  a  politician  playing  for  points.     Such  a  man 


428  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

is  not  the  power  he  seems.  He  is  formidable  only 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  shaking  it  takes  to 
rouse  the  community's  conscience. 

The  boss  is  like  the  measles,  a  distemper  of  a 
self-governing  people's  infancy.  When  we  shall 
have  come  of  age  politically,  he  will  have  no  ter- 
rors for  us.  Meanwhile,  being  charged  with  the 
business  of  governing,  which  we  left  to  him  be- 
cause we  were  too  busy  making  money,  he  follows 
the  track  laid  oiit  for  him,  and  makes  the  business 
pan  out  all  that  is  in  it.  He  fights  when  we  want 
to  discharge  him.  Of  course  he  does ;  no  man 
likes  to  give  up  a  good  job.  He  will  fight  or  bar- 
gain, as  he  sees  his  way  clear.  He  will  give  us 
small  parks,  play  piers,  new  schools,  anything  we 
ask,  to  keep  his  place,  while  trying  to  find  out  "  the 
price  "  of  this  conscience  which  he  does  not  under- 
stand. Even  to  the  half  of  his  kingdom  he  will 
give,  to  be  "  in  "  on  the  new  deal.  He  has  done 
it  before,  and  there  is  no  reason  that  he  can  see 
why  it  should  not  be  done  again.  And  he  will 
appeal  to  the  people  whom  he  is  plundering  to 
trust  him  because  they  know  him. 

Odd  as  it  sounds,  this  is  where  he  has  his  real 
hold.  I  have  shown  why  this  is  so.  To  the  poor 
people  of  his  district  the  boss  is  a  friend  in  need. 
He  is  one  of  them.  He  does  not  want  to  reform 
them ;  far  from  it.     No  doubt  it  is  very  ungrateful 


REFORM    BY   HUMANE   TOUCH  429 

of  them,  but  the  poor  people  have  no  desire  to  be 
reformed.  They  do  not  think  they  need  to  be. 
They  consider  their  moral  standards  quite  as  high 
as  those  of  the  rich,  and  resent  being  told  that  they 
are  mistaken.  The  reformer  comes  to  them  from 
another  world  to  tell  them  these  things,  and  goes 
his  way.  The  boss  lives  among  them.  He  helped 
John  to  a  job  on  the  pipes  in  their  hard  winter,  and 
got  Mike  on  the  force.  They  know  him  as  a  good 
neighbor,  and  trust  him  to  their  harm.  He  drags 
their  standard  ever  farther  down.  The  question  for 
those  who  are  trying  to  help  them  is  how  to  make 
them  transfer  their  allegiance,  and  trust  their  real 
friends  instead. 

It  ought  not  be  a  difficult  question  to  answer. 
Any  teacher  could  do  it.  He  knows,  if  he  knows 
anything,  that  the  way  to  get  and  keep  the  chil- 
dren's confidence  is  to  trust  them,  and  let  them 
know  that  they  are  trusted.  They  will  almost 
always  come  up  to  the  demand  thus  made  upon 
them.  Preaching  to  them  does  little  good ;  preach- 
ing at  them  still  less.  Men,  whether  rich  or  poor, 
are  much  like  children.  The  good  in  them  is  just 
as  good,  and  the  bad,  in  view  of  their  enlarged 
opportunities  for  mischief,  not  so  much  worse,  all 
considered.  A  vigorous  optimism,  a  stout  belief 
in  one's  fellow-man,  is  better  equipment  in  a  cam- 
paign  for   civic   virtue  than   stacks  of   tracts  and 


430  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

arguments,  economic  and  moral.  There  is  good 
bottom,  even  in  the  slum,  for  that  kind  of  an 
anchor  to  get  a  grip  on.  Some  years  ago  I  went 
to  see  a  boxing  match  there  had  been  much 
talk  about.  The  hall  was  jammed  with  a  rough 
and  noisy  crowd,  hotly  intent  upon  its  favorite. 
His  opponent,  who  hailed,  I  think,  from  somewhere 
in  Delaware,  was  greeted  with  hostile  demonstra- 
tions as  a  "  foreigner."  But  as  the  battle  wore  on, 
and  he  was  seen  to  be  fair  and  manly,  while  the 
New  Yorker  struck  one  foul  blow  after  another, 
the  attitude  of  the  crowd  changed  rapidly  from 
enthusiastic  approval  of  the  favorite  to  scorn  and 
contempt ;  and  in  the  last  round,  when  he  knocked 
the  Delawarean  over  with  a  foul  blow,  the  audience 
rose  in  a  body  and  yelled  to  have  the  fight  given 
to  the  "foreigner,"  until  my  blood  tingled  with 
pride.  For  the  decision  would  leave  it  practically 
without  a  cent.  It  had  staked  all  it  had  on  the 
New  Yorker.  "  He  is  a  good  man,"  I  heard  on  all 
sides,  while  the  once  favorite  sneaked  away  without 
a  friend.  "  Good  "  meant  fair  and  manly  to  that 
crowd.  I  thought,  as  I  went  to  the  office  the  next 
morning,  that  it  ought  to  be  easy  to  appeal  to  such 
a  people  with  measures  that  were  fair  and  just,  if 
we  could  only  get  on  common  ground.  But  the 
only  hint  I  got  from  my  reform  paper  was  an  edi- 
torial denunciation  of   the  brutality  of  boxing,  on 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE   TOUCH  431 

the  same  page  that  had  an  enthusiastic  review  of  the 
college  football  season.  I  do  not  suppose  it  did 
any  harm,  for  the  paper  was  probably  not  read  by 
one  of  the  men  it  had  set  out  to  reform.  But  sup- 
pose it  had  been,  how  much  would  it  have  appealed 
to  them  ?  Exactly  the  qualities  of  robust  manli- 
ness which  football  is  supposed  to  encourage  in 
college  students  had  been  evoked  by  the  trial  of 
strength  and  skill  which  they  had  witnessed.  As 
to  the  brutality,  they  knew  that  fifty  young  men  are 
maimed  or  killed  at  football  to  one  who  fares  ill 
in  a  boxing  match.  Would  it  seem  to  them  com- 
mon sense,  or  cant  and  humbug.-* 

That  is  what  it  comes  down  to  in  the  end :  com- 
mon sense  and  common  honesty.  Common  sense 
to  steer  us  clear  of  the  "  sociology  "  reef  that  would 
make  our  cause  ridiculous,  on  Fifth  Avenue  and  in 
East  Broadway.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  the  man 
who  would  do  things  by  system  and  in  order ;  but 
the  man  who  would  reduce  men  and  women  and 
children  to  mere  items  in  his  infallible  system  and 
classify  and  sub-classify  them  until  they  are  as  dried 
up  as  his  theories,  that  man  I  will  fight  till  I  die. 
One  throb  of  a  human  heart  is  worth  a  whole  book 
of  his  stuff.  Common  honesty  to  keep  us  afloat  at 
all.  If  we  worship  as  success  mere  money-getting, 
closing  our  eyes  to  the  means,  let  us  at  least  say  it 
like  the  man  who  told  me  to-day  that  "  after  all,  one 


432  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

has  to  admire  Bill  Devery;  he's  got  the  dough." 
Devery  was  Tammany's  police  chief.  The  man  is 
entitled  to  his  opinion,  but  if  it  gets  hitched  to  the 
reform  cart  by  mistake,  the  load  is  going  to  be 
spilled.     It  has  been,  more  than  once.    . 

A  saving  sense  of  humor  might  have  avoided 
some  of  those  pitfalls.  I  am  seriously  of  the 
opinion  that  a  professional  humorist  ought  to  be 
attached  to  every  reform  movement,  to  keep  it  from 
making  itself  ridiculous  by  either  too  great  solemnity 
or  too  much  conceit.  As  it  is,  the  enemy  some- 
times employs  him  with  effect.  Failing  the  adop- 
tion of  that  plan,  I  would  recommend  a  decree  of 
banishment  against  photographers,  press-clippings 
men,  and  the  rest  of  the  congratulatory  staff.  Why 
should  the  fact  that  a  citizen  has  done  a  citizen's 
duty  deserve  to  be  celebrated  in  print  and  picture, 
as  if  something  extraordinary  had  happened  ?  The 
smoke  of  battle  had  not  cleared  away  after  the 
victory  of  reform  in  the  fall  of  1894,  before  the  citi- 
zens' committee  and  all  the  little  sub-committees 
rushed  pell-mell  to  the  photographer's  to  get  them- 
selves on  record  as  the  men  who  did  it.  The  spec- 
tacle might  have  inspired  in  the  humorist  the 
advice  to  get  two  sets  made,  while  they  were  about 
it,  one  to  serve  by  and  by  as  an  exhibit  of  the  men 
who  didn't ;  and,  as  the  event  proved,  he  would  have 
been  right. 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE  TOUCH  433 

But  it  is  easy  to  find  fault,  and  on  that  tack  we 
get  no  farther.  Those  men  did  a  great  work,  and 
they  did  it  well.  They  built  from  the  bottom  and 
they  built  the  foundation  broad  and  strong.  Good 
schools,  better  homes,  and  a  chance  for  the  boy  are 
good  bricks  to  build  with  in  such  a  structure  as  we 
are  rearing.  They  last.  Just  now  we  are  laying 
another  course ;  more  than  one,  I  hope.  But  even 
if  it  were  different,  we  need  not  despair.  Let  the 
enemy  come  back  once  more,  it  will  not  be  to  stay. 
It  may  be  that,  like  Moses  and  his  followers,  we  of 
the  present  day  shall  see  the  promised  land  only 
from  afar  and  with  the  eye  of  faith,  because  of  our 
sins;  that  to  a  younger  and  sturdier  to-morrow  it 
shall  be  given  to  blaze  the  path  of  civic  righteous- 
ness that  was  our  dream.  I  like  to  think  that  it 
is  so,  and  that  that  is  the  meaning  of  the  coming  of 
men  like  Roosevelt  and  Waring  at  this  time  with 
their  simple  appeal  to  the  reason  of  honest  men. 
Unless  I  greatly  err  in  reading  the  signs  of  the 
times,  it  is  indeed  so,  and  the  day  of  the  boss  and 
of  the  slum  is  drawing  to  an  end.  Our  faith  has 
felt  the  new  impulse ;  rather,  I  should  say,  it  has 
given  it.  The  social  movements,  and  that  which 
we  call  politics,  are  but  a  reflection  of  what  the 
people  honestly  believe,  a  chart  of  their  aims  and 
aspirations.  Charity  in  our  day  no  longer  means 
alms,  but  justice.     The  social  settlements  are  sub- 

2F 


434  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

stituting  vital  touch  for  the  machine  charity  that 
reaped  a  crop  of  hate  and  beggary.  Charity  organ- 
ization —  "  conscience  born  of  love  "  some  one  has 
well  called  it  —  is  substituting  its  methods  in  high 
and  low  places  for  the  senseless  old  ways.  Its 
champions  are  oftener  found  standing  with  organized 
labor  for  legislation  to  correct  the  people's  wrongs, 
and  when  the  two  stand  together  nothing  can  resist 
them.  Through  its  teaching  we  are  learning  that 
our  responsibility  as  citizens  for  a  law  does  not  cease 
with  its  enactment,  but  rather  begins  there.  We 
are  growing,  in  other  words,  to  the  stature  of  real 
citizenship.  We  are  emerging  from  the  kind  of  bar- 
barism that  dragged  children  to  the  jail  and  thrust 
them  in  among  hardened  criminals  there,  and  that 
sat  by  helpless  and  saw  the  foundlings  die  in  the 
infant  hospital  at  the  rate  —  really  there  was  no  rate ; 
they  practically  all  died,  every  one  that  was  not  im- 
mediately removed  to  a  home  and  a  mother.  For 
four  years  now  a  joint  committee  of  the  State  Char- 
ities' Aid  Association  and  the  Association  for  Im- 
proving the  Condition  of  the  Poor  has  taken  them 
off  the  city's  hands  and  adopted  them  out,  and  in 
every  hundred  now  eighty-nine  live  and  grow  up! 
After  all,  not  even  a  Jersey  cow  can  take  the  place 
of  a  mother  with  a  baby.  And  we  are  building  a 
children's  court  that  shall  put  an  end  to  the  other 
outrage,  for  boys  taken  there  are  let  off   on  pro- 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE   TOUCH 


435 


bation,  to  give  them  the  chance  under  a  different 
teaching  from  the  slum's,  which  it  denied  them  till 
now. 

We  have  learned  that  we  cannot  pass  off  checks 
for  human  sympathy  in  settlement  of  our  brother- 
hood arrears.     The  Church,  which  once  stood  by 


Flag-drill  in  the  "  King's  Garden."     The  Playground  at  the  Jacob  A. 

Riis  House. 

indifferent,  or  uncomprehending,  is  hastening  to 
enter  the  life  of  the  people.  I  have  told  of  how,  in 
the  memory  of  men  yet  living,  one  church,  moving 
uptown  away  from  the  crowd,  left  its  old  Mulberry 
Street  home  to  be  converted  into  tenements  that 
justly  earned  the  name  of  "  dens  of  death  "  in  the 


436  THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 

Health  Department's  records,  while  another  became 
the  foulest  lodging  house  in  an  unclean  city,  and  of 
how  it  was  a  church  corporation  that  owned  the 
worst  underground  dive  down-town  in  those  bad  old 
days,  and  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  remonstrances. 
The  Church  was  "  angling  for  souls."  But  souls  in 
this  world  live  in  bodies  endowed  with  reason.  The 
results  of  that  kind  of  fishing  were  empty  pews  and 
cold  hearts,  and  the  conscience-stricken  cry  that 
went  up,  "  What  shall  we  do  to  lay  hold  of  this 
great  multitude  that  has  slipped  from  us  ? " 

The  years  have  passed  and  brought  the  answer. 
To-day  we  see  churches  of  every  denomination  unit- 
ing in  a  systematic  canvass  of  the  city  to  get  at  the 
facts  of  the  people's  life  of  which  they  had  ceased  to 
be  a  part,  pleading  for  parks,  playgrounds,  kinder- 
gartens, libraries,  clubs,  and  better  homes.  There 
is  a  new  and  hearty  sound  to  the  word  "  brother " 
that  is  full  of  hope.  The  cry  has  been  answered. 
The  gap  in  the  social  body,  between  rich  and 
poor,  is  no  longer  widening.  We  are  certainly 
coming  closer  together.  A  dozen  years  ago,  when 
the  King's  Daughters  lighted  a  Christmas  tree  in 
Gotham  Court,  the  children  ran  screaming  from 
Santa  Claus  as  from  a  "bogey  man."  Here  lately 
the  boys  in  the  Hebrew  Institute's  schools  nearly 
broke  the  bank  laying  in  supplies  to  do  him  honor. 
I  do  not  mean  that  the  Jews  are  deserting  to  join 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE  TOUCH  437 

the  Christian  Church.  They  are  doing  that  which 
is  better,  —  they  are  embracing  its  spirit ;  and  they 
and  we  are  the  better  for  it. 

"  The  more  I  know  of  the  Other  Half,"  writes  a 
friend  to  me,  "  the  more  I  feel  the  great  gulf  that  is 
fixed  between  us,  and  the  more  profoundly  I  grieve 
that  this  is  the  best  that  Christian  civilization  has 
as  yet  been  able  to  do  toward  a  true  social  system." 
Let  my  friend  take  heart.  She  herself  has  been  busy 
in  my  sight  all  these  years  binding  up  the  wounds. 
If  that  be  the  most  a  Christian  civilization  has  been 
able  to  do  for  the  neighbor  till  now,  who  shall  say 
that  it  is  not  also  the  greatest  ?  "  This  do  and  thou 
shalt  live,"  said  the  Lord  of  him  who  showed  mercy. 
That  was  the  mark  of  the  brotherhood.  No,  the  gulf 
is  not  widening.  It  is  only  that  we  have  taken 
soundings  and  know  it,  and  in  the  doing  of  it  we 
have  come  to  know  one  another.  The  rest  we  may 
confidently  leave  with  Him  who  knows  it  all. 

God  knows  we  waited  long  enough;  and  how 
close  we  were  to  one  another  all  the  while  without 
knowing  it !  Two  or  three  years  ago  at  Christmas 
a  clergyman,  who  lives  out  of  town  and  has  a  house- 
ful of  children,  asked  me  if  I  could  not  find  for  them 
a  poor  family  in  the  city  with  children  of  about  the 
same  ages,  whom  they  might  visit  and  befriend.  He 
worked  every  day  in  the  office  of  a  foreign  mission 
in  Fifth  Avenue,  and  knew  little  of  the  life  that 


438  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

moved  about  him  in  the  city.  I  picked  out  a 
Hungarian  widow  in  an  East  Side  tenement,  whose 
brave  struggle  to  keep  her  Uttle  flock  together  had 
enlisted  my  sympathy  and  strong  admiration.  She 
was  a  cleaner  in  an  oflice  building ;  not  until  all  the 
arrangements  had  been  made  did  it  occur  to  me  to 
ask  where.  Then  it  turned  out  that  she  was  scrub- 
bing floors  in  the  missionary  society's  house,  right 
at  my  friend's  door.  They  had  passed  one  another 
every  day,  each  in  need  of  the  other,  and  each  as 
far  from  the  other  as  if  oceans  separated  them 
instead  of  a  doorstep  four  inches  wide. 

Looking  back  over  the  years  that  lie  behind 
with  their  work,  and  forward  to  those  that  are 
coming,  I  see  only  cause  for  hope.  As  I  write 
these  last  lines  in  a  far-distant  land,  in  the  cit)'-  of 
my  birth,  the  children  are  playing  under  my  win- 
dow, and  calling  to  one  another  with  glad  cries 
in  my  sweet  mother-tongue,  even  as  we  did  in  the 
long  ago.  Life  and  the  world  are  before  them, 
bright  with  the  promise  of  morning.  So  to  me 
seem  the  skies  at  home.  Not  lightly  do  I  say  it, 
for  I  have  known  the  toil  of  rough-hewing  it  on 
the  pioneer  line,  that  turns  men's  hair  gray ;  but  I 
have  seen  also  the  reward  of  the  toil.  New  York 
is  the  youngest  of  the  world's  great  cities,  barely 
yet  out  of  knickerbockers.  It  may  be  that  our 
century  will  yet  see  it  as  the  greatest  of  them  all. 


REFORM   BY   HUMANE  TOUCH  439 

The  task  that  is  set  it,  the  problem  it  has  to  solve 
and  which  it  may  not  shirk,  is  the  problem  of 
civilization,  of  human  progress,  of  a  people's  fitness 
for  self-government,  that  is  on  trial  among  us.  We 
shall  solve  it  by  the  world-old  formula  of  human 
sympathy,  of  humane  touch.  Somewhere  in  these 
pages  I  have  told  of  the  woman  in  Chicago  who 
accounted  herself  the  happiest  woman  alive  because 
she  had  at  last  obtained  a  playground  for  her  poor 
neighbors'  children.  "  I  have  lived  here  for  years," 
she  said  to  me,  "and  struggled  with  principalities 
and  powers,  and  have  made  up  my  mind  that  the 
most  and  the  best  I  can  do  is  to  live  right  here 
with  my  people  and  smile  with  them,  —  keep  smil- 
ing; weep  when  I  must,  but  smile  as  long  as  I 
possibly  can."  And  the  tears  shone  in  her  gentle 
old  eyes  as  she  said  it.  When  we  have  learned 
to  smile  and  weep  with  the  poor,  we  shall  have 
mastered  our  problem.  Then  the  slum  will  have 
lost  its  grip  and  the  boss  his  job. 

Until  then,  while  they  are  in  possession,  our  busi- 
ness is  to  hold  taut  and  take  in  slack  right  along, 
never  letting  go  for  a  moment. 

And  now,  having  shown  you  the  dark  side  of  the 
city,  which,  after  all,  I  love,  with  its  great  memories, 
its  high  courage,  and  its  bright  skies,  as  I  love  the 
little  Danish  town  where  my  cradle  stood,  let  me, 


440  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

before  I  close  this  account  of  the  struggle  with  evil, 
show  you  also  its  good  heart  by  telling  you  "the 
unnecessary  story  of  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  and  her  par- 
rot." Perchance  it  may  help  you  to  grasp  better 
the  meaning  of  the  Battle  with  the  Slum.  It  is  for 
such  as  she  and  for  such  as  "Jim,"  whose  story  I 
told  before,  that  we  are  fighting. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

THE    UNNECESSARY  STORY    OF   MRS.  BEN  WAH  AND   HER 

PARROT 

Mrs.  Ben  Wah  was  dying.  Word  came  up  from 
the  district  office  of  the  Charity  Organization  Soci- 
ety to  tell  me  of  it.  Would  I  come  and  see  her 
before  I  went  away?  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  was  an  old 
charge  of  mine,  the  French  Canadian  widow  of  an 
Iroquois  Indian,  whom,  years  before,  I  had  un- 
earthed in  a  Hudson  Street  tenement.  I  was 
just  then  making  ready  for  a  voyage  across  the 
ocean  to  the  old  home  to  see  my  own  mother,  and 
the  thought  of  the  aged  woman  who  laid  away  her 
children  long  ago  by  the  cold  camp-fires  of  her  tribe 
in  Canadian  forests  was  a  call  not  to  be  resisted.  I 
went  at  once. 

The  signs  of  illness  were  there  in  a  notice  tacked 
up  on  the  wall,  warning  everybody  to  keep  away 
when  her  attic  should  be  still,  until  her  friends 
could  come  from  the  charity  office.  It  was  a  notion 
she  had,  Mrs.  McCutcheon,  the  district  visitor,  ex- 
plained, that  would  not  let  her  rest  till  her  "  paper  " 
was  made  out.  For  her,  born  in  the  wilderness, 
death  had  no  such  terror  as  prying  eyes. 

441 


442 


THE   BATTLE   WITH   THE   SLUM 


"  Them  police  fellows,"  she  said,  with  the  least 
touch  of  resentment  in  her  gentle  voice,  "  they  might 
take  my  things  and  sell  them  to  buy  cigars  to 
smoke."  I  suspect  it  was  the  cigar  that  grated 
harshly.  It  was  ever  to  her  a  vulgar  slur  on  her 
beloved  pipe.     In  truth,  the  mere  idea  of  Mrs.  Ben 

Wah  smoking  a  cigar 
rouses  in  me  impa- 
tient resentment. 
Without  her  pipe  she 
was  not  herself.  I 
see  her  yet,  stuffing  it 
with  approving  fore- 
finger, on  the  Christ- 
mas day  when  I  had 
found  her  with  to- 
bacco pouch  empty, 
and  pocket  to  boot, 
and  nodding  the 
quaint  comment  from 
her  corner,  "  It's  no  disgrace  to  be  poor,  but  it's 
sometimes  very  inconvenient." 

There  was  something  in  the  little  attic  room 
that  spoke  of  the  coming  change  louder  than  the 
warning  paper.  A  half-finished  mat,  with  its  bundle 
of  rags  put  carefully  aside ;  the  thirsty  potato-vine 
on  the  fire-escape,  which  reached  appealingly  from 
its  soap-box  toward  the  window,  as  if  in  wondering 


Mrs.  Ben  Wah. 


MRS.    BEN   WAH   AND   HER   PARROT  443 

search  for  the  hands  that  had  tended  it  so  faith- 
fully, —  bore  silent  testimony  that  Mrs.  Ben  Wah's 
work-day  was  over  at  last.  It  had  been  a  long  day 
—  how  long  no  one  may  ever  know.  "  The  winter 
of  the  big  snow,"  or  "the  year  when  deer  was 
scarce"  on  the  Gatineau,  is  not  as  good  a  guide 
to  time-reckoning  in  the  towns  as  in  the  woods,  and 
Mrs.  Ben  Wah  knew  no  other.  Her  thoughts  dwelt 
among  the  memories  of  the  past  as  she  sat  slowly 
nodding  her  turbaned  head,  idle  for  once.  The 
very  head-dress,  arranged  and  smoothed  with  un- 
usual care,  was  "  notice,"  proceeding  from  a  primi- 
tive human  impulse.  Before  the  great  mystery  she 
"  was  ashamed  and  covered  her  head." 

The  charity  visitor  told  me  what  I  had  half 
guessed.  Beyond  the  fact  that  she  was  tired  and 
had  made  up  her  mind  to  die,  nothing  ailed  Mrs. 
Ben  Wah.  But  at  her  age,  the  doctor  had  said,  it 
was  enough ;  she  would  have  her  way.  In  faith,  she 
was  failing  day  by  day.  All  that  could  be  done  was 
to  make  her  last  days  as  easy  as  might  be.  I  talked 
to  her  of  my  travels,  of  the  great  salt  water  upon 
which  I  should  journey  many  days;  but  her  thoughts 
were  in  the  lonely  woods,  and  she  did  not  under- 
stand. I  told  her  of  beautiful  France,  the  language 
of  which  she  spoke  with  a  singularly  sweet  accent, 
and  asked  her  if  there  was  not  something  I  might 
bring  back  to  her  to  make  her  happy.     As  I  talked 


444  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

on,  a  reminiscent  smile  came  into  her  eyes  and 
lingered  there.  It  was  evidently  something  that 
pleased  her.  By  slow  degrees  we  dragged  the  bash- 
ful confession  out  of  her  that  there  was  yet  one  wish 
she  had  in  this  life. 

Once  upon  a  time,  long,  long  ago,  when,  as  a 
young  woman,  she  had  gone  about  peddling  beads, 
she  had  seen  a  bird,  such  a  splendid  bird,  big  and 
green  and  beautiful,  with  a  red  turban,  and  that 
could  talk.  Talk !  As  she  recalled  the  glorious 
apparition,  she  became  quite  her  old  self  again,  and 
reached  for  her  neglected  pipe  with  trembling  hands. 
If  she  could  ever  see  that  bird  again  —  but  she 
guessed  it  was  long  since  gone.  She  was  a  young 
woman  then,  and  now  she  was  old,  so  old.  She 
settled  back  in  her  chair,  and  let  the  half-lighted 
pipe  go  out. 

"  Poor  old  soul ! "  said  Mrs.  McCutcheon,  patting 
the  wrinkled  hand  in  her  lap.  Her  lips  framed  the 
word  "  parrot "  across  the  room  to  me,  and  I  nodded 
back.  When  we  went  out  together  it  was  settled 
between  us  that  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  was  to  be  doctored 
according  to  her  own  prescription,  if  it  broke  the 
rules  of  every  school  of  medicine. 

I  went  straight  back  to  the  office  and  wrote  in  my 
newspaper  that  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  was  sick  and  needed 
a  parrot,  a  green  one  with  a  red  tuft,  and  that  she 
must  have  it  right  away.     I  told  of  her  lonely  life, 


MRS.    BEN   WAH   AND   HER   PARROT  445 

and  of  how,  on  a  Christmas  Eve,  years  ago,  I  had 
first  met  her  at  the  door  of  the  Chanty  Organiza- 
tion Society,  laboring  up  the  stairs  with  a  big  bundle 
done  up  in  blue  cheese-cloth,  which  she  left  in  the 
office  with  the  message  that  it  was  for  those  who 
were  poorer  than  she.  They  were  opening  it  when 
I  came  in.  It  contained  a  lot  of  little  garments  of 
blanket  stuff,  as  they  used  to  make  them  for  the 
pappooses  among  her  people  in  the  far  North.  It 
was  the  very  next  day  that  I  found  her  in  her  attic, 
penniless  and  without  even  the  comfort  of  her  pipe. 
Like  the  widow  of  old,  she  had  cast  her  mite  into 
the  treasury,  even  all  she  had. 

All  this  I  told  in  my  paper,  and  how  she  whose 
whole  life  had  been  kindness  to  others  was  now  in 
need  —  in  need  of  a  companion  to  share  her  lonely 
life,  of  something  with  a  voice,  which  would  not 
come  in  and  go  away  again,  and  leave  her.  And  I 
begged  that  any  one  who  had  a  green  parrot  with  a 
red  tuft  would  send  it  in  at  once. 

New  York  is  a  good  town  to  live  in.  It  has  a 
heart.  It  no  sooner  knew  that  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  wanted 
a  parrot  than  it  hustled  about  to  supply  one  at  once. 
The  morning  mail  brought  stacks  of  letters,  with 
offers  of  money  to  buy  a  parrot.  They  came  from 
lawyers,  business  men,  and  bank  presidents,  men 
who  pore  over  dry  ledgers  and  drive  sharp  bargains 
on  'Change,  and  are  never  supposed  to  give  a  thought 


446  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

to  lonely  widows  pining  away  in  poor  attics.  While 
they  were  being  sorted,  a  poor  little  tramp  song-bird 
flew  in  through  the  open  window  of  the  Charities 
Building  in  great  haste,  apparently  in  search  of  Mrs. 
McCutcheon's  room.  Its  feathers  were  ruffled  and 
its  bangs  awry,  as  if  it  had  not  had  time  to  make  its 
morning  toilet,  it  had  come  in  such  haste  to  see  if 
it  would  do.  Though  it  could  not  talk,  it  might  at 
least  sing  to  the  sick  old  woman  —  sing  of  the  silent 
forests  with  the  silver  lakes  deep  in  their  bosom, 
where  the  young  bucks  trailed  the  moose  and  the 
panther,  and  where  she  listened  at  the  lodge  door 
for  their  coming;  and  the  song  might  bring  back 
the  smile  to  her  wan  lips.  But  though  it  was  nearly 
green  and  had  a  tousled  top,  it  was  not  a  parrot, 
and  it  would  not  do.  The  young  women  who 
write  in  the  big  books  in  the  office  caught  it  and 
put  it  in  a  cage  to  sing  to  them  instead.  In  the 
midst  of  the  commotion  came  the  parrot  itself,  big 
and  green,  in  a  "  stunning  "  cage.  It  was  an  ami- 
able bird,  despite  its  splendid  get-up,  and  cocked 
its  crimson  head  one  side  to  have  it  scratched 
through  the  bars,  and  held  up  one  claw,  as  if  to 
shake  hands. 

How  to  get  it  to  Mrs.  Ben  Wah's  without  the 
shock  killing  her  was  the  problem  that  next  pre- 
sented itself.  Mrs.  McCutcheon  solved  it  by  doing 
the  cage  up  carefully  in  newspapers  and  taking  it 


MRS.    BEN   WAH   AND   HER   PARROT  447 

along  herself.  All  the  way  down  the  bird  passed 
muffled  comments  on  the  Metropolitan  Railway 
service  and  on  its  captivity,  to  the  considerable 
embarrassment  of  its  keeper ;  but  they  reached  the 
Beach  Street  tenement  and  Mrs.  Ben  Wah's  attic  at 
last.  There  Mrs.  McCutcheon  stowed  it  carefully 
away  in  a  corner,  while  she  busied  herself  about  her 
aged  friend. 

She  was  working  slowly  down  through  an  address 
which  she  had  designed  to  break  the  thing  gently 
and  by  degrees,  when  the  parrot,  extending  a  feeler 
on  its  own  hook,  said  "  K-r-r-a-a ! "  behind  its  paper 
screen. 

Mrs.  Ben  Wah  sat  up  straight  and  looked  fixedly 
at  the  comer.  Seeing  the  big  bundle  there,  she 
went  over  and  peered  into  it.  She  caught  a  quick 
breath  and  stared,  wide-eyed. 

"  Where  you  get  that  bird } "  she  demanded  of 
Mrs.  McCutcheon,  faintly. 

"  Oh,  that  is  Mr.  Riis's  bird,"  said  that  lady,  spar- 
ring for  time ;  "  a  friend  gave  it  to  him  —  " 

"  Where  you  take  him }  "  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  gasped, 
her  hand  pressed  against  her  feeble  old  heart. 

Her  friend  saw,  and  gave  right  up. 

"  I  am  not  going  to  take  it  anywhere,"  she  said. 
"  I  brought  it  for  you.  This  is  to  be  its  home,  and 
you  are  to  be  its  mother,  grandma,  and  its  friend. 
You   are  to   be  always   together  from  now  on  — 


448  THE   BATTLE  WITH   THE   SLUM 

always,  and  have  a  good  time."  With  that  she 
tore  the  paper  from  the  cage. 

The  parrot,  after  all,  made  the  speech  of  the  occa- 
sion. He  considered  the  garret;  the  potato-field 
on  the  fire-escape,  through  which  the  sunlight  came 
in,  making  a  cheerful  streak  on  the  floor ;  Mrs.  Ben 
Wah  and  her  turban  ;  and  his  late  carrier :  then  he 
climbed  upon  his  stick,  turned  a  somersault,  and 
said,  "  Here  we  are,"  or  words  to  that  effect.  There- 
upon he  held  his  head  over  to  be  scratched  by  Mrs. 
Ben  Wah  in  token  of  a  compact  of  friendship  then 
and  there  made. 

Joy,  after  all,  does  not  kill.  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  wept 
long  and  silently,  big,  happy  tears  of  gratitude. 
Then  she  wiped  them  away,  and  went  about  her 
household  cares  as  of  old.  The  prescription  had 
worked.  The  next  day  the  "  notice  "  vanished  from 
the  wall  of  the  room,  where  there  were  now  two 
voices  for  one. 

I  came  back  from  Europe  to  find  my  old  friend 
with  a  lighter  step  and  a  lighter  heart  than  in  many 
a  day.  The  parrot  had  learned  to  speak  Canadian 
French  to  the  extent  of  demanding  his  crackers  and 
water  in  the  lingo  of  the  habitant.  Whether  he 
will  yet  stretch  his  linguistic  acquirements  to  the 
learning  of  Iroquois  I  shall  not  say.  It  is  at  least 
possible.  The  two  are  inseparable.  The  last  time 
I  went  to  see  them,  no  one  answered  my  knock  on 


MRS.    BEN   WAH   AND   HER   PARROT  449 

the  door-jamb.  I  raised  the  curtain  that  serves  for 
a  door,  and  looked  in.  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  was  asleep 
upon  the  bed.  Perched  upon  her  shoulder  was  the 
parrot,  no  longer  constrained  by  the  bars  of  a  cage, 
with  his  head  tucked  snugly  in  her  neck,  asleep  too. 
So  I  left  them,  and  so  I  like  to  remember  them 
always,  comrades  true. 

It  happened  that  when  I  was  in  Chicago  last 
spring  I  told  their  story  to  a  friend,  a  woman. 
"Oh,  write  it!"  she  said.  "You  must!"  And 
when  I  asked  why,  she  replied,  with  feminine  logic: 
"  Because  it  is  so  unnecessary.  The  barrel  of  flour 
doesn't  stick  out  all  over  it." 

Now  I  have  done  as  she  bade  me.  Perhaps  she 
was  right.  Women  know  these  things  best.  Like 
my  own  city,  they  have  hearts,  and  will  understand 
the  unnecessary  story  of  Mrs.  Ben  Wah  and  her 
parrot. 


INDEX 


Addams,  Miss  J.,  Chicago  work,  365, 

395- 
Adler,  Professor  F.,  reform  work,  71- 

72,  371,  402. 
Air-shaft  in  tenements,  tenants'  uses 

and  peril  of,  93. 
Alfred  Corning  Clark  buildings,  129, 

130. 
Allen  Street  — 

Children    seeking    "the     commis- 
sioner "  for  justice,  59-60. 
One-room  houses,  beginnings  of,  97. 
School  building,  354,  357. 
Anderson,  Mrs.  A.   A.,   bath  gift  to 

city,  282. 
Armenian  Christmas  tree,  contribution 

of  poor  children,  218. 
Association  for  improving  condition  of 
the  poor  — 
Baths,  public,  282. 
Housing  reform  movement,  128. 
Work  of,  285. 
Athletic  meets,  Crotona  Park,  366. 

Bacillus  of  the  slum,  62. 

Balkan  peninsula,  immigration  from, 

202. 
Bands,  roof  playgrounds,  389-395. 
Barney  of  Cat  Alley,  333-339. 
Baron  Hirsch  Fund,  see  Hirsch  Fund, 
Baths,  public  — 

Anderson,  Mrs.  A.  A.,  gift,  282. 
Association  for  improving  condition 

of  poor,  work  of,  282. 
Free  river  baths,  282. 
Hamilton  Fish  Park,  Tammany  use 
of,  149-152. 


Baths,  public  {continued')  — 

Lack  of  public  baths  scandal,  281. 

Mott  Street  bath,  282. 

Plans  for  system  of  municipal  baths, 
282-283. 

Rivington  Street,  281. 

Shower-baths  for  public  schools,  283. 
Battle  Row  — 

Gang,  Easter  service,  251-252. 

Improvement,  135. 
Baxter  Street  "  dens  of  death,"  14,  20. 
Beds,  Mills  Houses,  159. 
Beginning  of  the  battle,  1-4. 
Bellevue,   scandal    during    Tammany 

government,  66. 
Bend,  see  Mulberry  Bend. 
Ben  Wah,  Mrs.,  and  her  parrot,  story 

of,  441-449- 
Beresheim,  Jacob  — 

Arrest  for  murder,  227. 

Birth  in  tenement,  228. 

Law-breaking,  234. 

Life  and  environment,  227-236. 

Schooling  neglected,  231. 
Berlin  death-rate,  124. 
Big  Flat,  Mott  Street  — 

Carriage  factory  in  place  of,  32. 

Instance  of  reform  still-born,  27. 
Blacksmith,  Patrick  Mullen,  413-414. 
Bleeker  Street  house,  see  Mills  Houses. 
B'nai  B'rith  "removal  plan,"  215. 
Bone  Alley,  destruction,  279-281,  285. 
Boss,  character  of,  420-429. 
Bottle  Alley,  Whyo  gang  headquarters, 

272,  308. 
Bowery  lodging  houses,  see  Lodging 
houses. 


451 


452 


INDEX 


Boxing  match,  430. 
Boys  — 

Qubs,  see  that  title. 

Crime,  see  that  title. 

Farm  colony  for  young  vagrants,  127, 

172,  350- 

Fathers'  authority  lost,  237-238. 

Future  of — effect  of  political  influ- 
ences, 225-226. 

Gangs,  see  that  title. 

Increase  of  child  crime,  225,  240- 
242. 

Military  spirit,  247,  255. 

Play,  necessity  of,  233. 

Summer  excursions,   Mr.   Schwab's 
proposition,  405-406. 

Type  of  East  Side  boy,  see  Bere- 
sheim,  Jacob. 

"  Weakness    not   wickedness,"   re- 
formatory verdict,  244. 
Brass  bands,  school  roof  playgrounds, 

389-395- 
Brick  sandwiches,  224. 
British   Museum,  stone   arm   exhibit, 

message  of  warning,  111-112. 
Bronx — 

Crotona  Park  athletic  meets,  366. 
Primary    school     1895,     condition, 

348. 
Brooklyn  — 

Riverside  tenements,  135,  140. 
Weeks,  L.  S.,  murder,  156. 
Bruin,  Madame,  school  punishments, 

341-342. 
Buck,  Miss  W.,  management  of  boys' 

clubs,  373,  383. 
Buddensiek,  tenement  builder,  impris- 
onment, 20-21. 
Building  Department,  supervision  of 

tenement  lighting,  etc.,  104. 
Byrnes,  Inspector  —  lodging  houses  as 

nurseries  of  crime,  54,  156. 

"  Cadets,"  Tammany  organization,  74. 

Capmaker,   Polish,   home  in  Stanton 

Street  tenement,  76-80. 


Cat  Alley  — 

Barney,  333-339. 

Charity  of  the  Alley,  322-325. 

Children  of  the  Alley,  330-331. 

Cosmopolitan  population,  314-316. 

Dago  eviction,  314. 

Deaths  and  funerals,  325-330. 

Demolition,  337-340. 

Description   and   occupation,  312- 

313- 
"  Fat  One,"  326,  329. 
French  couple,  315-316. 
Irish  population,  314,  316-320. 
Marriages,  early,  and  second  mar- 
riages, 325. 
Mott  Street  scrap,  320-322. 
Name,  mystery  as  to  origin,  312. 
Tragedy  averted,  323. 
Trilby,  iii-iii- 
Walsh,  Mrs.,  funeral,  329-330. 
Widows,  325-326. 
Catherine  Street,  condition  before  de- 
struction, 119. 
Cellars,  Park  Street,  20. 
Census  — 

Death-rate,  see  that  title. 
School  census,  349. 
Charity  of  the  poor,  instances  of,  216- 

222,  322-325,  445. 
Charity  Organization    Society,   tene- 
ment  reform  movement,    143, 

147. 
Chicago  — 

Church,  basement  dwellers  in  neigh- 
borhood of,  181. 

Hull   House   kindergarten,  harvest 
picture  incident,  365. 

Parks,  410. 

Playground,  304-305,  439. 

School  excursions,  362. 

Slums,  outlook,  17. 
Child  labor.  East  Side,  43-44, 185, 186. 
Children  — 

Boys,  see  that  title. 

Cat  Alley,  330-331. 

Clubs,  see  that  title. 


INDEX 


453 


Children  (^continued)  — 

Increase  of  child  crime,  225,  240- 

242. 
Landlords  of  tenements,  Greenwood 

story,  96. 
Neglect  of,  225-226,  233. 
Schools,  see  that  title. 
Tagging    lost     children    proposed, 

92. 
Tenements     as     "infant    slaughter 

houses,"  37. 
Children's  Aid  Society  — 

Report  as  to  condition  and  neglect 

of  children,  225. 
Rescue  of  boys,  245. 
Cholera  panic,  1866,  4,  29. 
Christmas  trees  — 

Armenian,    contribution     of    poor 

children,  218. 
Gotham  Court,  311. 
Santa  Claus  in  the  slums,  94,  310- 

311- 
Church  Federation,  Fifteenth  Assem- 
bly District  — 

Baths,  investigation,  281. 

Educational  agencies  and  saloons, 
129-130,  292. 
Churches  — 

Movement  up-town,  232. 

Neglect  of  the  young,  232. 

Reform    movement    attitude,    399, 

435-437- 
Citizens'   council   of  hygiene,   report 

1866,  19. 
City  and  Suburban  Homes  Company — 
Erection  of  model  tenements,  129- 

137- 
Homewood  plan,  137-138. 
Management,  136. 
City  History  Club,  work  of,  379. 
Qeaning  the  streets.  Colonel  Waring's 

work,  45-46,  268-272,  415. 
Qubs  — 

Buck,  Miss  W.,  work  of,  373,  383. 
East   Side   boys'  demand  for  club 
room,  372. 


Clubs  (^continued)  — 
Gangs,  see  that  title. 
Good  Government  Clubs,   see   that 

title. 
Jackson  Pleasure  Club,  School  No. 

160,  374-377- 
Meeting,  management  of  Miss  W. 

Buck,  373. 
People's  Club,  work  of,  381. 
Saloon  room,  372. 
School  class-room  plan,  372-374. 
Willard,  D.,  work  of,  378-379. 
College  settlement,  see  University  set- 
tlement. 
Colored  people,  see  Negroes. 
Committee   of   Fifteen,   evidence    of 

Tammany  corruption,  74. 
Consumers'    League,    work    of,    196- 

201. 
Convalescents'  home,  gift  for,  396. 
Cooking  classes,  advantages  of,  367- 

368. 
Cooper    Institute,   educational  work, 

380. 
Cottages,  Homewood  plan,  137-138. 
Crime  — 

Boys,  see  that  title. 

Child  crime,  increase  of,  225,  240- 

242. 
Gangs,  see  that  title. 
Italian  criminals  discovered  in  Mul- 
berry Street,  204-205. 
Lodging  houses   as  "nursefies   of 

crime,"  54,  156. 
"Weakness    not   wickedness,"    re- 
formatory verdict,  244. 
\^See  also  Murders  and  Robberies.] 
Croker,  R.  — 
Abdication,  75. 
Election  of  1900,  73. 
\^See  also  Tammany.] 
Crotona  Park  athletic  meets,  366. 
Crowding,  see  Overcrowding. 
"  Cruller  fire,"  tenement  house,  88. 
Cutting,  R.  F.,  erection  of  homes  for 
working  people,  129. 


454 


INDEX 


Dalmatia,  immigration  from,  202. 
Dancing,   school    roof    playgrounds, 

392-793- 
Death-rates  — 
Berlin,  124. 
Double-deckers,    lowest    mortality, 

114-115. 
First  Ward,  116. 

Five  Points  "  dens  of  death,"  16. 
Heat  of  summer  1896,  power  of  re- 
sistance, 125-126. 
Mott  Street  barracks,  123. 
Rear  tenants  scandal,  115, 
Reduction,    council    of    hygiene's 

judgment,  19. 
Reform  effects  on,  125-126. 
Deaths  in  Cat  Alley,  325-330. 
Death's    Thoroughfare,    Old   Church 

tenements,  16. 
Democratic  government  imperilled  by 

existence  of  slum,  6. 
Demolition  of  dangerous  property,  1 14, 
1 16-125,    ^4°>    272-280,    310- 
3".  337-340. 
"Dens  of  Death,"  14,  16,  20. 
Destitution  encouraged  by  free  lunch, 

lodging,  etc.,  170,  172. 
Destruction  of  property,  see  Demoli- 

tioni 
Devil's    money  —  compaign     against 

Tammany,  1901,  63-75. 
"  Discretion  "  clause,  tenement  build- 
ing, 88,  105,  107,  148. 
Disease  —  disclosures     of    Tenement 
House   Exhibition,  1900,  143- 

147. 

Dispossessed  tenants,  rehousing,  286- 
287. 

Doctor,  woman  doctor.  Dr.  J.  E.  Rob- 
bins,  205-206. 

Dog,  Trilby  of  Cat  Alley,  331-333- 

Double-deckers  — 

Cause  of  overcrowding,  102. 
Description   and  condemnation  by 
Tenement  House  Commission, 
102-103. 


Double-deckers  —  (^continued) 

Doom  of,  82-85,  148,  149. 

Elizabeth   Street,  midnight  inspec- 
tion, 99-102. 

Mortality  rate,  lowest,  114-115. 

Solid  block,  105. 
Drunkards  and  slum  homes,  23. 
"Druv  into  decency,"  113-114. 
Dwellings   of    the    poor,    see    Tene- 
ments. 

Eagle,  Ellis  Island,  202-204. 

East    River    barge,   winter    lodgings, 

1896,  170-172. 
East  River  Park,  sacred  grass,  301. 
Education,  see  Schools. 
Education     Board,     work     of,    365- 

366. 
Educational  Alliance  — 
Roof  garden,  388. 
Work  among  Jews,  382. 
Eldridge    Street  tenement,  unlighted 

halls,  91-92. 
Eleventh  Ward,  overcrowding  statis- 
tics, 82. 
Elizabeth  Street  — 
Giant,  331. 
Midnight   inspection  of  tenements, 

99-102. 
Sewing  "  pants "  at  thirty  cents  a 

day,  183. 
Elliot,    Dr.,  subscriptions     for    guild 

house,  402. 
Ellis  Island  eagle,  202-204. 
Elsing,  Mr.,  children  of  Sunday-school, 

contribution       to      Armenian 

Christmas  tree,  218. 
Emigration,  see  Immigration. 
Enforcement  of  the  law,  necessity  of, 

47.  223,  235,  415.  418. 
Essex  Street,  attempt  to  establish  park, 

294. 
Excursions,  Mr.  Schwab's  proposition, 

405-406. 
Exhibition,  tenement  house,  1900,  ef- 
fect of,  I43-H7- 


INDEX 


455 


Experimenting  with  the  school,  403- 
410. 

Eyes  inspection,  public  school  chil- 
dren, 358-359. 

Factory  tenements,  disapproval  of,  1 34. 
Farming — 

Farm   colony   for  young  vagrants, 

127,  172,  350. 
Jewish  farming  abilities,  215. 
Truck  farming  on  site  of  Stryker's 
Hill,  366. 
Fat  boiling  in   tenements,   cause   of 

fires,  88. 
"  Fat  One  "  of  Cat  Alley,  326,  329. 
Federal  Government  slum  inquiry,  61, 

97.  175- 
Fifteenth  Assembly  District,  j^^  Church 

Federation. 
Fire-engine  horses,  fate  of,  425. 
Fires  in  tenement  houses  — 
Air-shaft,  danger  of,  93. 
"  Cruller  fire,"  88. 
Non-enforcement  of  law  as  to  fire- 
proof material,  87-89. 
First  Ward  death-rate,  116. 
Five  Points  — 
Mortality  rate,  16. 
Wiping    out    in    1850,    Wisconsin 
farmer's  work,  14. 
Flag,  flying,  value  of,  209-211. 
Foreign  population  — 

Child    labor    and   education,   185- 

186. 
Italians,  see  that  title. 
Jews,  see  that  title. 
Proportion,  175-176. 
Forest,  R.  W.  de,  chairman  of  Tene- 
ment   House    Commission    of 
1900,  147. 
Forsyth  Street  tragedies,  86. 
Foster,  R.,  fight  with  tenement  land- 
lords, 124. 
Fourth   Ward,   examination   of  girls' 

school,  355-357- 
Fourth  Ward  slum,  16. 


Fraunces'  Tavern,   historical   associa- 
tion, 380. 
Free   lunch,   lodging,   etc.,   vagrancy 

encouraged  by,  170,  172. 
French  couple.  Cat  Alley,  315-316. 
"  Frills,"    Hester    Street    roof   play- 
ground, 342,  359,  360,  403. 
Funerals  — 

Cat  Alley,  329-330. 

Slum  interest  and  excitement,  109. 

Gambling,    characteristic    of   Italian 

immigrant,  186. 
Gangs  — 

Battle  Row,  Easter  service,  251-252. 
College  settlement  work,  success  of, 

248-249. 
Genesis   of,  environment  of   boy's 

career,  235-247. 
Hook  gang,  288. 
Long  Island  story,  250. 
Whyo  gang  headquarters,  272,  308. 
Women's  work  and  success,  251. 
\^See  also  Boys.] 
Gehegan,  Mrs.,  of  Cat  Alley,  319. 
Genesis  of  the  gang,  environments  of 

boy's  career,  236-247. 
German  destitution  and  charity,  story 

of,  217-218. 
Giant,  Elizabeth  Street,  331. 
Gibbon,  quotation  from  Vitruvius  as  to 

height  of  dwellings,  11. 
Giddings,  Professor  F.  H.,  child  labor 

investigation,  185. 
Gilder  Tenement  House  Commission, 
work  of,  88,  105,  108,  116,  228, 
276,  279,  281. 
Golden     Gate     Association,    kinder- 
garten record,  245. 
Good  Government  Clubs  — 

Tammany  condemnation  of,  126. 
Work  of,   1896-97,   127,  128,    279, 

371.  372. 
Gotham  Court  — 

Beginnings  of  reformation,  23-27. 
Christmas  tree,  311. 


456 


INDEX 


Gotham  Court  (^continued)  — 

Destruction  of  dangerous  property, 
Ii8,  119. 

Gould,  Dr.  E.  R.  L.,  president  of  com- 
pany for  erection  of  homes  for 
poor,  129,  133,  138,  139, 

Government  by  the  people  imperilled 
by  existence  of  slum,  6. 

Government  slum  inquiry,  61,  97,  175. 

Grand  Street,  soap  factories  prohibited 
below,  107. 

Grant,  Mayor,  reform  work,  45-46. 

Graveyard  as  playground,  302. 

Great  Robbery,  city  treasury,  4-5, 
285. 

Green  Dragon  yard,  London,  26-27. 

Gun-maker  Patrick  Mullen,  413-414. 

Hamilton  Fish  Park  — 

Restoration,  296. 

Uselessness  of,  149-152,  295. 
Health  Board  — 

Tammany  negligence,  64,  67. 

Tenement  landlords,  fights  with,  30, 

37- 
Heat  of  summer  1896,  power  of  re- 
sistance, 125-126. 
Hebrew  Institute  — 

Educational  Alliance  work,  382. 
Roof  garden,  305-307, 
Hebrews,  see  Jews. 
Hell's  Kitchen  — 
Improvement,  51-52. 
Negro  possession,  desolate  appear- 
ance, no. 
Helvetia  House  demolition,  285. 
Hester  Street  — 
School  — 

Qub  room,  373. 
Nature  studies,  363-364. 
Roof  playground,  342,  359-360. 
Wheat  lesson,  363. 
Street-cleaning,  45. 
Hewitt,  A.  S.— 

Chairman   of  Advisory  Committee 
on  Small  Parks,  287. 


Hewitt,  A.  S.  {continued^  — 

Neglect  of  the  children,  233. 

Ten  years  reform  theory,  287. 
Hirsch  Fund  — 

Educational  work  in  Hebrew  Insti- 
tute, 382. 

New  Jersey,  aid  to  Jewish  colonies, 
213. 
Holy  Terror  Park,  302. 
Home  libraries  in  the  tenements,  382- 

383- 
Homes  — 

Homewood  cottage  scheme,  failure 

of.  137-138. 
Lack  of  home-life  — 

Need  of  neighborliness,  398-403. 
Warning,  111-112. 
New  Jersey,  Jewish  colonies,  212- 

215. 
New  Orange,   scheme   abandoned, 

214- 

Rallying  points  of  civilization,  80. 
Slum  an  enemy  of,  7. 
Homewood  cottages,  failure  of  scheme, 

137-138. 
Hook  gang,  288. 
Horses,  fire-engine,  fate  of,  425. 
Hotels  — 

Mills  Houses,  see  that  title. 
Stewart,  A.  T.,  failure  of  hotel,  29, 

165-166. 
Woman's  Hotel  for  working  women, 
need  of,  166-168. 
Housing  of  the  poor,  see  Tenements. 
"  Hudson-bank  "  park  — 
Success  of,  292. 

Truck  farming  on  site  of  Stryker's 
Lane,  366. 
Hudson  Guild,  subscriptions  for  guild 

house,  402. 
Hull   House   Kindergarten,  Chicago, 
harvest  picture  incident,  365. 

Immigration  — 

City  destination,  mistake  of,  207-208. 
Distribution  necessary,  208,  212. 


INDEX 


457 


Immigration  (continued)  — 
Ellis  Island  eagle,  202-204. 
Inspection    before    embarkation   at 

foreign  port,  206,  207. 
Italian  statistics  and  incidents,  176- 

181. 
Jewish,  191-192. 
Naturalization    papers,   fraudulent, 

186,  190,  207. 
Restriction,  enforcement  of  law,  206. 
School  as  means  of  enrolment,  211, 

212. 
Shutting   the   door   problem,   204- 

206. 
Tammany   slum   politics,    186-191, 

211. 
Irish  people  — 

Cat  Alley  tenants,  314,  316-320. 
Eviction  in  tenements,  iio-iii. 
Italians  — 
Cat  Alley,  Dago  eviction,  314. 
Charges  of  dirtiness  and  ignorance, 

181-183. 
Child  labor,  185. 
Criminals    discovered   in    Mulberry 

Street,  204-205. 
Elizabeth  Street  tenements  inspec- 
tion, lOO-IOI. 
Gambling,  186. 

Home  scene  —  sewing  "pants,"  184. 
Immigration  statistics  and  incidents, 

176-181. 
Naturalization    papers,    fraudulent, 

and    illegal   registration,    186- 

191. 
Politics  of  the  slum,  186-191. 
Underbidding  the  Jew,  183. 

Jackson   Pleasure   Qub,   School   No. 

160,  374-377. 
Jerome,  W.  T.,  campaign  of  1901,  74. 
Jersey  Street,   clearance  and   factory 

erections,  32-34. 
Jews  — 

Charges  against,  as  citizens,  192. 
Educational  work  among,  382. 


Jews  (continued)  — 
Farming  abilities,  215. 
Glazier,  story  of,  384. 
Hebrew  Institute,  see  that  title. 
Immigrants,  191- 192. 
Material  for  good  citizens,  192-193. 
New  Jersey  colonies,  212-215. 
Orchard     Street,     dwelling     under 

stairs,  95. 
"  Removal  plan "  started  by  Knai 

B'rith,  215. 
Roof  garden,  Hebrew  Institute,  305- 

307- 
Sweating,  194. 
Tailors'  quarrel,  183. 
Jim  and  his  mother,  story  of,  256-263. 
Juvenik  Asylum  for  burglars  and  tru- 
ants, 349. 

Kelly,  Mrs.,  and  Jim,  story  of,  256- 

263. 
Kerosene  Row  demolition,  285. 
Kerosene  stoves,  odor  of  tenements, 

92. 
"  Kid  "  —  Battle    Row    gang,   Easter 

service,  251-252. 
Kindergarten  record,  San  Francisco, 

245- 
Kindergarten  system,  benefit  of,  365- 

367- 
Klotz,  Madame,  of  Cat  Alley,  316. 

Laundries  of  model  tenement  houses, 

136. 
Law,  enforcement,  47,  223,  235,  415, 

418. 
League  for  Political  Education,  reform 

work,  247. 
Leipziger,  Dr.,  evening  classes,  403. 
Lexow  disclosures,  5,  41,  66. 
Libraries  — 

Free    library    system,   erection    of 

buildings,  397. 
Home   libraries   in  the  tenements, 

382-383. 
Licensing  of  tenements,  153. 


458 


INDEX 


Lights   in   halls   of   tenements,   non- 
enforcement  of  law,  90-92. 
Lodging  houses  — 

Competition  of  Mills  Houses,  161. 
East  River  barge,  winter  lodgings, 

1896,  170-172. 
Mills  Houses,  see  that  title. 
"Nurseries  of  Crime,"  54,  156. 
Police  station  lodging  rooms,  48-50, 

169-170. 
Problem  of,  159. 
London  — 

British    Museum    exhibit,  warning 

message,  Iii-ii2. 
Green  Dragon  yard,  26-27. 
Ragged  school,  factory  nuisance  in- 
cident, 117. 
Seven  Dials,  reformation, "  druv  into 
decency,"  113-I14. 
Long  Island  — 

Homewood  plan,  137-138. 
Stewart  house,  failure  of,  165-166. 
Lost  children,  tagging  proposed,  92. 
•  Low,  Mayor  — 
Election,  75. 

Reform  government,   school    erec- 
tions, 44. 
Roof  playgrounds,  389. 

M'Carthy,  Mrs.,  of  Cat  Alley,  316. 
Mahoney,  Miss,  of  Cat  Alley,  319. 
Market,  Colonel  Waring's  scheme,  273. 
Marriages  in  Cat  Alley,  325. 
Massachusetts  — 

Demolition    of   dangerous    houses, 

123. 
Tenement    labor,   registry    system, 

200. 
Massachusetts,  U.S.S.,  cost  of,  346. 
Medical   inspection   of  schools,    fight 

for,  357- 
Menu,  Mills  House,  160. 
Meyer,  D.,  thief,  238. 
Meyer,  F.,  murderer,  98. 
Mike  of  Poverty  Gap,  239-240. 
Mills,  D.  O.,  see  Mills  Houses. 


Mills  Houses  — 
Beds,  159. 

Business  management,  158. 
Erection  of  hotels,  128. 
Fame  and  success  of,  162,  165. 
Housing  capacity,  161. 
Menu,  160. 
Privileges  of,  159. 
Thieves,  safety  from,  162. 
Mississippi  River  town,  reservation  of 

vacant  land,  17. 
Model  tenements,  erection  and  success 

of,  128-137. 
Mooney,  William,    founder    of  Tam- 
many, character  of,  64. 
Mortality  rates,  see  Death-rates. 
Mott  Street  — 
Barracks  — 

Death-rate,  123. 
Destruction,  118,  120-124. 
Legal  proceedings,  120,  123. 
Bath,  public,  282. 
Big  Flat,  see  that  title. 
Cat  Alley  scrap,  320-322. 
Trilby,  gang  in  pursuit,  332. 
Mulberry  Bend  — 

Bottle  Alley,  see  that  title. 
Description,  39-40. 
Destruction,  39-41,  51. 

Campaign  difficulties,  272-276. 
Cost  of,  275. 
Wrecked  square  — 

Accident  to  children,  270. 
Nuisance,  276. 
Effect  of  reform,  307-309. 
Italian  criminals,  nest  of,  204-205. 
Night  scenes,  173. 
Old  Church  tenements,  l6. 
Park  — 
Appropriation  lost,  40. 
Completion  and  opening,  266. 
Cost,  18. 

Dedication,  267-268. 
"Keep  off"  the  grass,"  267. 
School  building  reform,  355. 
Whyo  gang  headquarters,  272,  308. 


INDEX 


459 


Mullen,  Patriclc,  story  of,  413-414. 
Mullen's  Qjurt,  purchase  for  destruc- 
tion, 119. 
Murders  — 

Beresheim,  J.,  227. 

Forsythe  Street  tragedy,  86. 

Lodging  houses,  murders  traced  to, 
156. 

Meyer,  F.,  98. 

Mike  of  Poverty  Gap,  239-240. 

Weeks,  L.  S.,  156. 

National  Consumers'  League,  work  of, 
196-201. 

Naturalization  papers,  fraudulent,  186, 
190,  207. 

Neckties,  Poverty  Gap,  51. 

Negroes  — 

Character  as  tenants,  1 10. 
Model  tenements  for,  134. 

Neighborliness,  need  of,  398-403. 

Nero,  enactment  as  to  height  of  build- 
ings, II. 

New  Jersey,  Jewish  colonies,  212-215. 

New  Orange,  home-building  attempt 
abandoned,  214. 

"  Nurseries  of  crime,"  lodging  houses 
as,  54,  156- 

Old  Church  tenements,  16. 
One-room  houses,  beginnings  of,  97. 
Open    spaces,   see    Parks    and    play- 
grounds. 
Orchard  Street  — 

Jews  dwelling  under  stairs,  95. 

One-room  houses,  beginnings  of,  97. 
Outdoor  Recreation  League  — 

"  Hudson-bank  "  park,  292. 

Organization  and  object,  300. 

Seward  Park  gymnastic  apparatus, 
302. 
Overcrowding  — 

Battle  against,  83-86. 

Double-deckers  as  cause  of,  102. 

Elizabeth   Street,  midnight   inspec- 
tion, 99-102. 


Overcrowding  {continued)  — 
Increase  statistics,  81-83. 
Promoters  of,  high  rents  and  low 
wages,  96. 

Paddock,   Rev.  R.,  evidence   against 

Tammany  evil-doers,  72. 
Palmerston,  Lord,  advice  as  to  check- 
ing an  epidemic,  34. 
Park  Avenue  hotel  for  working  girls, 

failure  of,  29,  165-166. 
Parkhurst  disclosures,  41,  66. 
Park  Street,  cellars,  20. 
Parks  and  playgrounds  — 
Advisory   committee,   action,   287- 

291. 
Chicago,  304-305,  410,  439. 
Crotona  Park,  athletic  meets,  366. 
East  River  Park,  sacred  grass,  301. 
Effect  of,  288-289,  307-309. 
Essex   Street,   attempt  to   establish 

park,  294. 
Gilder  law,  276,  279. 
Graveyard  as  playground,  302. 
Hamilton  Fish  Park,  see  that  title. 
Hebrew  Institute,  roof  garden,  305- 

307- 

Holy  Terror  Park,  302. 

"  Hudson-bank,"  see  that  title. 

Mulberry  Bend,  see  that  title. 

Naming  of,  374-375. 

Outdoor  Recreation  League,  see  thai 
title. 

Poverty  Gap  playground,  302. 

Proportion  of  park  area  down-town, 
279. 

Recreation  piers,  292,  296,  299. 

Rivington  Street,  attempt  to  estab- 
lish park,  293. 

Roof  playgrounds,  see  that  title. 

School  playgrounds,  see  Schools. 

Seward  Park,  see  that  title. 

Small  Parks  law,  see  that  title. 
.   Tammany  neglect,  67,  309. 

Tenement  plots,  107,  108.      • 

Thieves'  Alley  site,  286. 


46o 


INDEX 


Parrot  of  Mrs.  Ben   Wah,   story   of, 

441-449- 
People's  Club,  work  of,  381. 
People's  Institute,  educational  work, 

380. 
People's  University  Extension  Society, 

work  of,  381. 
Piers,     recreation     piers,     292,    296, 

299. 
Playgrounds,    see    Parks    and    play- 
grounds. 
Play  piers,  292,  296,  299. 
Police  Board  conspiracy,  417. 
Policemen,     candidates'    examination 

papers,  220-221. 
Police  station  lodging  rooms,  48-50, 

169-170. 
Policy  swindle,  418. 
Polish    capmaker,   home    in   Stanton 

Street  tenement,  76-80. 
Political   Education    League,    reform 

work,  247. 
Political  meetings  in  school  buildings 

proposed,  407-408. 
Political  tenements,  149,  152. 
Poor,  improvement,  see  Association  for 
improving     condition    of    the 
poor. 
Population  — 

Cat  Alley,  314-316. 
Census,  see  that  title. 
Charity  of  the  poor,  instances  of, 

216-222,  322-325,  445. 
Death-rate,  see  that  title. 
Foreign  population,  see  that  title. 
Increase  statistics,  81-83. 
Inquiry  by  United   States  govern- 
ment, disclosures,  175. 
Italians,  see  that  title. 
Jews,  see  that  title. 
Movement,  133. 
Overcrowding,  see  that  title. 
Sweating,  see  that  title. 
Potter,  Bishop —  ^ 

Arraignment  of  Tammany  corrup- 
tion, 70-73. 


Potter,  Bishop  {continued)  — 

Pro-Cathedral,  Stanton  Street,  72, 

182. 
Religious  organizations,  182. 
Poverty  Gap  — 

Improvement,  51-52. 
Mike,  of  Poverty  Gap,  239-240. 
Neckties,  51. 
Playground,  302. 
Prague,  picture  of  city,  incident,  204. 
Prison,  see  Tombs. 
Prostitution,   Tammany  organization, 

69-74. 
Public  baths,  see  Baths. 
Public  Education  Association,  reform 

work,  371,  372,  378. 
Public  schools,  see  Schools. 
Push-cart  men.  Colonel  Waring's  mar- 
ket scheme,  273. 

Quaker,  builder  of  Gotham  Court,  25. 

Rear  tenements,  j^^  Tenements. 
Recreation  piers,  292,  296,  299. 
Recruiting  thief,  156,  164. 
Reformatory  report  on  weak  character 

of  boys,  244. 
Reform  by  humane  touch,  41 1-440. 
Reform  effects  in  thirteen  years,  42-54. 
Reform  programme,  283-285. 
River  baths,  free,  282. 
Riverside   tenements   built   by  A.  T. 

White,  135,  140. 
Rivington  Street  — 

Bath-house,  281. 

Mills  Houses,  see  that  title. 

Park,  attempt  to  establish,  293. 
Robberies  — 

Great  Robbery,  city  treasury,  4-5, 
285. 

Meyer,  D.,  thief,  238. 

Recruiting  thief,  156,  164. 

Tweed,  thief,  4-5,  285. 
Robbins,  Dr.  Jane  E.,  woman  doctor 

in  the  slums,  205-206. 
Rome,  slums  of,  9-1 1. 


INDEX 


461 


Roof  gardens  — 

Educational  Alliance  building,  388. 

Hebrew  Institute,  305-307. 
Roof  playgrounds,  public  schools,  291, 
342. 

Brass  bands,  389-395. 

Fight  for,  385-389. 

Hester  Street  school,  342,  359-360. 

Success  of,  389-439. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore  — 

Election  as  Governor,  56. 

Law  enforcement,  47,  235, 415,  418. 

Reform  administration,  50,  414-418. 

Tenement  House   Commission  ap- 
pointed, 1900,  147. 
Roosevelt  Street  tenement,  demolition 

of,  124. 
Roses,  Hester  Street  school,  364. 

St.  Andrew's  Brotherhood,  school  chil- 
dren excursion  schemes,  362. 
Saloons  — 

Cheer  and  social  life  of  tenements, 

419-420. 
Qub  room  for  boys  provided,  372. 
Fight    with    Roosevelt,   record   of 
week  of  crime,  418. 
Sandwiches  —  brick  sandwiches,  224. 
San  Francisco,   kindergarten   record, 

245- 
Santa  Claus  in  the  slums,  310-31 1. 

\^See  also  Christmas  trees.] 
Scarlet  fever  epidemic  traced  to  public 

school,  358. 
Schools,  public  — 

Allen  Street  building,  354,  357. 
Appropriation  for  new  schools,  44, 

346. 
Barrel  and  hog  punishments,  341- 

342. 
Board  of  Education,  work  of,  365- 

366. 
Bronx  primary  school,  1895,  condi- 
tion of,  348. 
Building,     perfection     of     Snyder 

schools,  353. 


Schools,  public  {continued^  — 
Census,  349, 

Charges  and  facts,  342-345. 
Qubs,  class-room  opened  for,  372- 

374. 

Compulsory  education  law,  non-en- 
forcement, 231. 

Control,  abolition  of  ward  trustee, 
etc.,  347,  348. 

Cooking  classes,  367-368. 

Excursion  schemes,  362. 

Experimenting,  403-410. 

Eyes  inspection,  358-359. 

Fourth  Ward,  examination  of  girls, 

355-357- 

Hester  Street,  see  that  title. 

Immigrants,  school  as  means  of  en- 
rolment, 211,  212. 

Kindergartens,  benefit  of,  365-367. 

Lack  of  schools,  43,  186. 

Medical  inspection  fight,  357. 

Mental  befogment  results,  230. 

Nature  lessons,  361-364. 

Neighborhood  purposes,  387,  398- 
410. 

Number  and  naming  of  schools,  374, 

375- 

Playgrounds  — 

Advisory  committee  report,  290- 

291. 
Roof  playgrounds,  see  that  title. 

Political  meetings  in,  suggested, 407- 
408. 

Public  Education  Association,  re- 
form work,  371,  372,  378. 

Punishments  in  Madame  Bruin's 
school,  341-342. 

Recreative  purposes,  361. 

Reform    fight,    44-45*    283,    345- 

371- 
Scarlet   fever   epidemic    traced    to 

public  school,  358. 
Seats,  "  dead-line,"  408-409. 
Shower-baths,  283. 
Social  movement,  use  of  the  public 

school,  398-410. 


462 


INDEX 


Schools,  public  {continued)  — 

Sunday  opening  proposed,  399-403. 
Teachers'  attitude  to  reform,  369- 

371- 
"Three   H's"   and    "Three    R's," 

368,  387. 
Tombs,   school   for   boys    awaiting 

trial,  378,  379. 
Tompkins    Square    lodging    house 

evening  classes,  226. 
Truant  school,  241,  242,  349,  350. 
Woman's  work  in  reform,  371,  377, 

379. 
Schwab,  Mr.,  summer  excursions  for 

boys,  405-406. 
Settlement,     see     University     Settle- 
ment. 
Seven  Dials  reformation,  "  druv  into 

decency,"  11 3-1 14. 
Seward  Park  — 

Crowds  at  play,  302-304. 
Delay  in  promised  park,  295. 
Gymnastics,  302-303. 
Work  started  on,  296. 
Sheds,  tenants  in,  98. 
Shower-baths  for  public  schools,  283. 
Silver  campaign,  Irish  laborer   story, 

217. 
Slaughter  houses,  rear  tenements  con- 
demned as,  37,  105,  116. 
Slovak  immigration,  202. 
Slums  — 

Bacillus  of  the  slum,  62. 

Beginning  of  the  battle,  1-4, 

Chicago  outlook,  17. 

Clubs,  see  that  title. 

Crime,  see  that  title. 

Democratic  government  imperilled 

by,  6. 
"Druv  into  decency,"  I13-114. 
Funeral  show,  109. 
Inquiry  by  United   States  govern- 
ment, 61,  97,  175. 
Italians,  see  that  title. 
Jews,  see  that  title. 
Making  of  the  slum,  i. 


Slums  {continued)  — 
Military  band,  252,  255. 
Parks,  see  that  title. 
Population,  see  that  title. 
Rome,  9-1 1. 
Schools,  see  that  title. 
Sensations  and  shows,  109. 
Stroll      through       tenement-house 

neighborhood,  86-108. 
Sweating,  see  tliat  title. 
Tammany,  see  that  title. 
Tenements,  see  that  title. 
Tuberculosis,  194-196,  300. 
Small  parks  law,  287. 

Advisory    committee    action,    287- 

291. 
Lost  appropriation,  40. 
Origin  of,  274. 
Small-pox  epidemics,  29,  34,  64,  67. 
Snyder,  builder  of  schools,  353. 
Soap  factories  prohibited  below  Grand 

Street,  107. 
Social  halls  scheme,  420. 
Social  movement,  use  of  the   public 

school,  398-410. 
Soup  —  end  of  free  soup,  47. 
Stanton  Street  — 

Polish  capmaker,  home  of,  76-80. 
Pro-Cathedral,  72,  182. 
Stroll  through  neighborhood,  86. 
Staten  Island,  summer  excursions  for 
boys,   Mr.  Schwab's  proposal, 
405-406. 
Stewart,  A.  T.,  hotel,  failure  of,  29, 

165-166. 
Street     cleaning.    Colonel     Waring's 

work,  45-46,  268-272,  415. 
Stryker's  Lane,  truck  farming,  366. 
Sullivan  Street,  condition  before  dem- 

oHtion,  1 19-120. 
Sunlight  in  tenements,  assessment  on, 

94. 
Summer,  1896,  power  of  resistance  of 

heat,  125-126. 
Sunday  opening  of  schools  proposal, 
399-403. 


INDEX 


463 


Sweating  — 

Consumers'  League,  work  of,  196- 
201. 

Fight  against,  196. 

Growth  of,  31. 

Home  work  in  tenements,  183-184, 
194-196. 

Italian  underbidding  Jews,  183. 

Jews,  complaint  against,  194, 

United  Garment  Workers  of  Amer- 
ica, compact,  1892,  198. 
Swine  and  the   cholera   panic,  1866, 
4,29. 

Tagging  lost  children  proposed,  92. 
Tailors  — 

Jewish  quarrel,  183. 

Sweating,  see  that  title. 
Tammany  — 

Boss,  character  of,  420-429. 

Campaign  of  190 1  against,  63-75. 

Croker,  R.,  see  that  title. 

Election,  1897,  425-426. 

Election  night,  slum  scenes,  58. 

Good  Government  Clubs  condemned 
by,  126. 

Hamilton  Fish  Park,  use  of  people's 
baths,  149-152. 

History  of  corruption  and  pecula- 
tion, 5,  60,  64-74. 

Immigrants  claimed   by  slum  poli- 
tics, 186-191,  211. 

Italian  immigrant  vote,  187-191. 

Mooney,  William,  character  of,  64. 

Parkhurst  and  Lexow  disclosures,  5, 
41,  66. 

Playgrounds  policy,  309. 

Prostitution  organization,  69-74. 

Reform  failures,  65. 

Small-pox  epidemics  during  govern- 
ment, 64,  67. 

Tramp  vote,  48. 
Teachers,  school  reform  attitude,  369- 

37>- 
Tenants   of   the    slums,   see    Popula- 
tion. 


Tenement  House  Commission  — 

Appointment,  1900,  147. 

Gilder,  see  that  title. 

"  Infant  slaughter  houses,"  37. 
Tenement  House  Committee,  volun- 
teer, formation   and   work   of, 

143- 

Tenement   House  Department,  crea- 
tion of,  147-148. 

Tenement    House    Exhibition,    1900, 
effect  of,-  143-147. 

Tenements  — 

Air-shaft,  tenants'  uses  and  peril  of, 

93- 

Alfred  Corning  Clark  buildings,  1 29, 
130. 

Buddensiek,  tenement  builder,  im- 
prisonment, 20-21. 

Building  Department  supervision, 
104. 

Children,  see  that  title. 

Christmas  trees,  see  that  title. 

Citizens'  council  of  hygiene,  report, 
1866,  19. 

City  and  Suburban  Homes  Com- 
pany, see  that  title. 

City  control  of  building  proposed, 

•     152. 
Death-rate,  see  that  title. 
"  Dens  of  death,"  14,  20. 
Destruction,  see  Demolition. 
"  Discretion "    clause    in    building 

laws,  88,  105,  107,  148. 
Disease  —  disclosures  of  Tenement 

House  Exhibition,  1900,  143- 

147- 
Double-deckers,  see  that  title. 
Factory  tenements,   disapproval  of, 

134- 
Filthy  condition,  landlord's  excuse, 

>3- 

Fires,  see  that  title. 

First  chapter  in  story  of,  II. 

Gilder  Commission,  work  of,  88, 105. 

108,  116,  228,  276,  279,  281. 
Halls,  unlighted,  90-92. 


464 


INDEX 


Tenements  {continued)  — 

Health  board  fights,  30,  37. 

Height  and  jerry-building,  11-13. 

Home  libraries,  382-383. 

Increase  in  population  and  over- 
crowding, 81-83. 

"Infant  slaughter  houses,"  37. 

Irish  people,  see  that  title. 

Italians,  see  that  title. 

Jews,  see  that  title. 

Kerosene  stove,  odor  of,  92. 

Landlord's  profits,  90. 

Licensing,  153. 

Model  tenements,  erection  and  suc- 
cess of,  128-137, 

Negroes,  see  that  title. 

One-room    house,    beginnings    of, 

97- 
Open  spaces,  see  Parks. 
Opposition    to    improvement,    30- 

31- 
Overcrowding,  see  that  title. 
Parks,  see  that  title. 
Plans  for  improvements,  37. 
Political  tenements,  149,  152. 
Population,  see  that  title. 
Rear  tenements  — 
Condemned  as  "slaughter  houses," 

37,  105,  116. 
Death-rate  scandal,  1 15-116. 
Demolition,  114. 
Report     of    select    committee    of 

assembly,  1857,  12-13. 
Rome,  II. 
Standard  of  space   for  adults  and 

children,  97. 
Sunlight,  assessment  of  value,  94. 
Sweating,  see  that  title. 
Tenants,  see  Population. 
Twenty-five  foot  lot,  doom  of,  142, 

148,  149. 
Up-town  and  down-town,  109-111. 
Water  supply,  lack  of,  i8i. 
\^See  also  Slums.] 
Thieves,  see  Robberies. 
Thieves'  Alley  demolition,  285,  286. 


Tombs  — 

Demolition,  proposed   preservation 

of  gates,  5. 
School  for  boys  awaiting  trial,  378, 

379- 
Tweed,  thief  in,  4. 
Tompkins  Square  — 

Beresheim,  Jacob,  see  that  title. 
Evening  classes  failure,  226. 
Tracy,  Dr.   R.  S.,  mortality  records, 

116. 
Tramp  vote,  Tammany's  use  o  ,  48. 
Trilby  of  Cat  Alley,  331-333. 
Trinity  Church,   opposition   as   tene- 
ment-house landlord,  30. 
Truant  school,  fight  for,  241,  242,  349, 

350- 

Truck  farming  on  site  of  Stryker's 
Lane,  366. 

Trucks,  street  obstructions,  disappear- 
ance, 45-46,  269-270. 

Tuberculosis  in  the  slums,  194-196, 
300. 

Tweed,  thief,  4-5,  285. 

Twenty-five-foot  lot,  doom  of,  142, 148, 
149. 

United  Garment  Workers  of  America, 
compact,  1892,  198. 

United  States  government  slum  in- 
quiry, 61,97,  '75- 

University  Extension  Society,  work  of, 
381. 

University  settlement  — 
Social     development     and     school 

movement,  397-410. 
Work  with  East  Side  gang,  248. 

Vagrancy  — 

Crime,  see  that  title. 
Encouragement    by    free    lunches, 

lodging,  etc.,  170,  172. 
Farm  colony  for  young  vagrants  pro- 
posed, 127,  172,  350. 
Vitruvius,  quotation  as  to  height  of 
dwellings,  11. 


INDEX 


465 


Walsh,  Mrs.,  funeral  in  Cat  Alley,  329- 

330- 
Waring,  Colonel  — 
Death,  268, 
Market  scheme,  271. 
Mulberry   Street   Park    dedication, 

268. 
Street -cleaning,  45-46,    126,   268- 

272,  414,  415. 

Trucks,  disappearance,  45-46,  269- 

270. 

Water  supply  in  tenements,  lack  of,  181. 

Weeks,  L.  S.,  murder  in  Brooklyn,  156. 

Wheat  lesson,  Hester  Street   school, 

363- 
White,   A.  T.,   Riverside   tenements, 
135,  140. 


Whitechapel,  London,  Green  Dragon 

yard,  25-27. 
Whyo  gang  headquarters,  272,  308. 
Widows  in  Cat  Alley,  325-326. 
Willard,    D.,     reform    work     among 

children,  378-379. 
Wisconsin  farmer — battle  with  Five 

Points,   13-14. 
Woman  doctor  in  the  slums.  Dr.  J.  E. 

Robbins,  205-206. 
Woman's  Hotel  for  working  women, 

need  of,  166-168. 
Woodbine,    Hirsch    colony   in    New 

Jersey,  213. 
Wooster  Street  barracks,  16. 
Working  people's  dwellings,  see  Tene- 
ments. 


2H 


THE  MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN 

AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

By  JACOB  A.  RIIS 

Author  of  "  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,"  etc.,  etc.    With  over  loo  illustrations 
from  photographs  and  original  drawings. 

Cloth  8vo  Gilt  Top  $2.00  net 


"The  Making  of  an  American  fairly  bubbles  over  with  happiness, 
energy,  and  inspiration.  ...  It  is  partly  the  pleasure  of  watching  a  des- 
perate, thrilling  contest  against  big  odds,  with  success  at  the  end,  that  gives 
this  book  its  keen  appeal."  —  Boston  Herald. 

"  To  say  that  the  book  is  as  interesting  as  a  novel  would  be  to  belittle  its 
powers  of  entertaining.  Few  novels  could  hold  my  attention  as  can  this  book. 
While  it  was  running  through  T/ie  Outlook  a  great  many  people  imagined 
that  it  was  more  or  less  in  the  nature  of  fiction,  but  every  word  of  it  is  true." 

—  Chicago  Tribune, 

"It  is  refreshing  to  find  a  book  so  unique  and  captivating  as  The 
Making  of  an  American,  the  volume  in  which  Jacob  A.  Riis  tells  the  strange 
story  of  his  life.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  Mr.  Riis  has  been  a 
police  reporter  on  a  New  York  newspaper,  and  he  still  believes  there  is  no 
more  desirable  position  to  be  found  anywhere.  .  .  .  Incidentally  he  has 
gained  a  national  reputation  by  writing  '  How  the  Other  Half  Lives'  and  'A 
Ten  Years'  War,'  and  this  ingenious  autobiography  will  carry  his  fame  still 
farther,  for  it  is  the  most  irresistibly  entertaining  book  he  has  written  .  .  . 
one  of  the  brightest,  wholesomest,  most  fascinating  books  of  the  season." 

—  Record- Herald,  Chicago. 

"  It  is  not  its  relation  to  civic  problems  and  social  conditions  that  will 
give  The  Making  of  an  American  its  place  in  the  world's  heart.  It  is  its 
personal  charm,  its  buoyancy  and  humor  and  tenderness,  its  romance  and 
vivid  incident,  that  makes  this  life-story  of  a  simple  American  citizen  as  varied 
and  delightful  as  any  romance."  —  Publishers^  Weekly. 

"The  Making  of  an  American  is  the  story  of  a  very  extraordinary  life, 
the  record  of  obstacles,  apparently  insuperable,  overcome  by  sheer  brain  and 
brawn.  ...  It  is,  moreover,  a  love  story  of  a  peculiarly  intimate  sort.  For 
Mr.  Riis  won  the  girl  he  wanted,  after  all.  Only  a  Dane,  and  a  Dane  who  had 
come  under  the  influence  of  that  sweetest  and  simplest  of  characters,  Hans 
Andersen,  could  have  narrated  a  story  of  this  sort."  —  Nero  York  Herald. 


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